If you ever want to feel a sense of awe, try being near an erupting volcano. The late author Michael Crichton was fascinated with volcanoes for most of his life. And even now, 16 years after his death, among the countless books and papers in his Santa Monica office you'll find reams of research on volcanoes.
For his widow, Sherri Alexander Crichton, it's almost like he's still here. “I feel his energy all the time,” she said.
And in the mountain of papers he left behind, he found parts of an unfinished novel centered around a huge volcanic eruption. It struck Sherri as something she would have wanted to share: a posthumous blockbuster from someone who, in her relatively short life, gave so much to the world, including genetically recreated dinosaurs.
CBS News
In the literary world, Michael Crichton was a colossus: the only writer to have a book, a movie and a number one TV show in the same year. He was also a Harvard-educated physician, a prolific genius who created science thrillers that took millions on thrilling journeys, from big-city emergency rooms in “ER” to the tornado-ravaged heartland in ” Twister,” to places that exist only in our dreams (and nightmares), like “Jurassic Park.”
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Sherri Crichton remembers him as someone who was incredibly funny, but sometimes aloof. “I remember when I first started dating Michael, a very dear friend of mine said, 'Sherri, it's going to be like this: He's going to feel like he doesn't want anything to do with you when he writes. It won't feel. like he loves you more because it's going to be in the book and you have to be okay with that. And I said, “Of course, of course I'll be fine.”
“But when it hit, like those first few times when it really came apart, he was present, but he was actually still in his creation, whatever it was,” he said.
He admits it was a difficult time: “And it took a lot of confidence in myself to be able to say, 'This is going to be fine. Let's give it another month. Let's see how it goes.'”
They married in 2005, but three years later, Michael Crichton died of cancer aged 66, leaving Sherri alone and six months pregnant with their son, John Michael.
While picking up the pieces of his life, he discovered and read parts of the volcano book he'd been working on, a page-turner about a massive eruption in Hawaii worse than history.
It ended abruptly. “But I kept thinking, 'There's got to be more,'” Sherri said.
And so, after more than a decade, he decided it was time to end it. But then there was the question of who. “I just got older. I thought, 'What about James Patterson?'
James Patterson is one of the most successful authors in history, having sold an estimated 400 million books and collaborated with the likes of President Bill Clinton i Dolly Parton. The truth is that Patterson has a backlog of projects that keep him busy every day. But when Sherri Crichton called, she answered. And Michael Crichton's story – about the explosive volcano and the fact that it threatened to open a reservoir of toxic waste so powerful that it could destroy life on planet Earth – was too good to pass up.
But finishing the book was a difficult task for both Patterson and Sherri Crichton.
She said she was apprehensive at first: “I was nervous because it's a new relationship,” Sherri said.
Patterson added: “And she lives in Hollywood and people lie out here!”
“I have to say, I'm very protective of Michael's materials,” she said.
WEB EXTRA: James Patterson on the 'Gift' of a New Michael Crichton Thriller (YouTube Video)
And how did Patterson find Michael Crichton's voice, or was he supposed to? He said: “I had read everything that Michael Crichton wrote. So I think he had a sense of the voice. This book might be a little more peaceful than some of his books, just a little bit. But I had a sense of it. I challenge people to come out and say: This is where Michael stopped, and this is where James began. And I'm very proud of that. I'm very happy about it.”
The final result, “Eruption,” by Michael Crichton and James Patterson, is out tomorrow.
Little, Brown & Co.
Patterson said, “There's a quote: I don't know where that came from, and it's not me, but I love it, and it's related to my take on this project, and I think it's actually more valuable to 20-year-olds than it is to me, and the quote is, “My time here is short; what can I do more beautiful?”
“And I felt that with 'Eruption' and Michael Crichton, I thought I could do really well,” Patterson said.
He's not wrong; the finished book is already said to have studios asking for the film rights.
And it is also true to the spirit of the man who started it. Sherri said, “He was amazing. He was vulnerable and kind.”
And now, their work will live on, in a team effort that's long overdue and, at least for Sherri Crichton, worth the wait.
“I was single until I met Michael,” she said. “And people used to say, 'Why are you so picky?' And I'm like, “It's still not good.” So I waited.
“And it was the same with Jim… I waited for this manuscript until I felt it was the right time, that I had all the pieces of the puzzle. But then it had to be the right one. And I think I did. Well! “
READ AN EXTRACT: “Eruption” by Michael Crichton and James Patterson
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Story produced by John D'Amelio. Publisher: Mike Levine.
Tracy Smith
