When James Patterson was chosen to finish the last manuscript of the late Michael Crichton, he knew he had a difficult task ahead of him.
Crichton, the celebrated author of books like Congo and Jurassic Parkdirector of movies like Western world and Comaand creator of the medical drama Emergency, died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 66, leaving behind a pregnant widow, Sherri, and a vast body of research. When Sherri started going through it and found the manuscript that would become Eruption, which comes out June 3, she knew she had to find someone special to complete the story. She spent the next 15 years trying to find that writer.
“I really immersed myself in his work, so when I found the right person for it [complete] In this story, they had everything they needed,” she explains.
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That’s where Patterson, 77, performed. Bestselling author of novels like Along Came a Spider and Kiss the girls he worked closely with Sherri to ensure that the book was something the author would be proud of.
‘Eruption’ by Michael Crichton and James Patterson.
“I’ve always been a huge fan of Michael’s, so that made it extra special,” Patterson says of the project. “If someone you admire passes, you say, ‘I just want a little more.’ In this case, I wanted to find out how the story turned out, so it had to be written.”
Sherri calls the unconventional collaboration between two literary giants “incomprehensible.”
“It was an instant partnership,” she says. “I remember thinking, ‘How amazing would it be to bring these two master storytellers together? Has this ever happened before? I don’t think so, not at this level.’ Once the connection between these two iconic writers was established, I had to stand back and watch the collaboration come to life on that page.”
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Michael Crichton in 1990.
Douglas Kirkland/Corbis via Getty
Michael Crichton began writing the manuscript that would become Eruption in 1994 and worked on it sporadically for the next 14 years, leaving behind meticulous notes and a vast amount of research. That was key for Patterson, who said that working on a book-in-progress is vastly different from his usual process, which usually starts with a 60- to 80-page rough draft and moves to production only after all the beats are solidified. .
“If I have a really great idea but I don’t know where it’s going, I probably won’t do a book until at least meditate I know where it’s going,” explains Patterson. “In this case, we had a setup. We had a lot of stuff there, but we didn’t know where it was going.”
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He and Sherri worked closely together in a “joyful collaboration,” which included intensive research into volcanology, to make sure the book retained Crichton’s signature momentum and rigorous scientific accuracy. Eruption takes place on the Big Island of Hawaii, where a historic volcanic event will take place. But another force is brewing that could be even more devastating and, of course, with plenty of breathtaking drama along the way.
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“It was a nice challenge to try to keep up the pace and the drama,” says Patterson. “I would send[Sherri] chapters, and she would write and give notes. I defy anyone to figure out where Michael left off and I started because that’s something we were both very conscious of, to make sure he had the same feeling all the way through.”
Now that the book is going out into the world, they both believe he succeeded.
“I think this book stands up to the best of what he did,” says Patterson. “Not only is it another Michael Crichton book, but it’s really good. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve done.”
Eruption is out June 3 from Little, Brown and Company and is available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.
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