Novelist Michael Crichton never talked much about his works in progress, says his widow Sherri Crichton. But she could sometimes pick up clues. “I knew of a volcano story,” Sherri Crichton says.
“That would probably come up in our conversations when we were on one of the many beautiful hikes in Kauai. He would give me fun facts about volcanic activity and the evolution of different volcanoes all over the world. “He was always spitballing in his head where he was in his story,” she says.
“So I got these little breadcrumbs of knowing that there’s a volcano story out there somewhere.” When , he left behind a legacy that included nearly 30 novels, including “The Andromeda Strain,” “Congo,” and “Jurassic Park,” many of which became Hollywood blockbusters. He wrote and directed films such as “Coma” and “Westworld,” and created and produced the TV series “E.
R.,” which ran for 15 seasons. After his death, Sherri Crichton, then pregnant with their son, found herself in charge of his archives and literary legacy.
But with grief and an infant to juggle, it was 2010 before she really dug into the work he’d left behind. There, she found an unfinished manuscript for the volcano story, and suddenly things shifted into focus. “It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, this takes place on the Big Island – Michael loved the Big Island,” Crichton says.
“And there was this painting in our home of Mauna Loa. He loved that painting, but I never knew the reasons .
