James A. Michener by John Phillip Hayes

Everyone knows the name, but scarcely anyone knows the man. James A. Michener, the world's best selling story teller, didn't begin writing until he was 40, but with Tales of the South Pacific, his first book, he hit the jackpot. Each succeeding bestseller made him a millionaire many times over. Here for the first time is Michener's life story. This biography, written with Michener's cooperation, explores the drive behind the man's success, his relationships with women, agents, editors, publishers and friends. The book was published a dozen years before Michener's death. Editorial Reviews Review . . . Hayes obviously came to this book thoroughly prepared. The interviews with Michener ended in July 1982, and thereafter Hayes began setting down the chapters that form his impressive volume. -- Philadelphia Inquirer In unveiling Michener, Hayes finds a man plagued by doubts and insecurities, a man born apparently an illegitimate child and who stopped cooperating with the inquisitive Hayes when the biographer's questions cut too close to Michener's domestic life. -- Columbus Dispatch John P. Hayes' new biography of James A. Michener is like many of Michener's books: simple, direct and well-researched. -- Dallas Times Herald Readers discover an ambivalent person in this engrossing biography. -- Publishers Weekly The author (Hayes) spins a good yarn about the very interesting life of a very complex man. . . . It's not a puff job, although at first I thought it was going to be. -- Philadelphia Daily News What's remarkable here is Hayes' ability to separate wheat from chaff in his long research and come up with a gem of a biography, blessedly only one third as long (240 pages) as anything Michener wrote. . . . Some of the best parts of this book are the anecdotes from Michener's youth and his academic achievements. -- Cincinnati Enquirer, Dec. 23, 1984 From the Author I met Jim Michener in the summer of 1970 when the Cleveland Plain Dealer assigned me to interview him in Kent, Ohio, where he was researching a book about the May 4 tragedy at Kent State University. I was a senior journalism major at Kent State at the time and had been an eyewitness to the horrible weekend confrontation that ended in bloodshed and the deaths of four students. After the interview Michener asked if I'd like to work for him as a researcher for his book, Kent State: What Happened and Why. Of course I said Yes! For several months I had the privilege of watching Michener at work. During that time and for several years thereafter I was caught up in learning more and more about this man who had become one of the world's most cherished authors. Who was this man? What motivated him? One day I asked for his permission to write his biography. He responded haltingly - he said he didn't think anyone would really be interested in reading about him -- but gradually he cooperated with me. Fourteen years later he had cooperated considerably by introducing me to people in his life and by opening the doors to his private collections of papers at the Library of Congress and elsewhere. On numerous occasions I visited Michener at his home in Pipersville, Pa., and then St. Michaels, Md. Frequently I met up with him on the road when he was speaking or autographing books. He always found a chunk of private time to spend with me so that I could ask him more questions. Upon his suggestion, I used to send him a dozen questions by mail, and no matter where he was in the world, or what he was working on, he responded in a timely and usually enthusiastic fashion. By July 1982, however, I had either worn him down or worn out my welcome. I had sent him several pointed questions and rather than answering the questions he decided that we had reached a logical halting spot. He went on to say that his decision could not harm me because you already know more than anyone else on earth about your chosen subject matter. Were I to do tomorrow you would be totally competent to publish what you already have and to make shrewd, intelligent guesses about the rest; I feel confident your guesses would be close to the mark. . . . Well, you should proceed now as if I were gone. That said, only the writing remained. I completed the book in 1983 for publication in 1984. Meanwhile, Michener lived to the glorious age of 90 and died in 1997 at his home in Texas. About the Author John P. Hayes grew up in Dover, Ohio. While attending Kent State University he was an eyewitness of the May 4, 1970 campus tragedy, which resulted in the deaths of four students by the National Guard. Hayes was hired by James A. Michener to help research the book, Kent State: What Happened and Why. After graduating from KSU, Hayes became a journalism professor, serving the university from 1972-76. He was then recruited by Temple University in Philadelphia where he served as an assistant professor of communications while earning a doctorate in American Studies. In 1982, Hayes left the university to start a marketing company. In 1995 he sold his company and since then has been writing, speaking and consulting from his home in Dallas, Texas. He is the author or co-author of more than 15 books. Hayes has been married for 30 years and he's the father of three children. Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. There has never been an author in America quite so elusive and yet so popular as Michener. He began writing at the age of forty in 1947, when writers truly mattered in the United States . . . . Better than any contemporary writer Michener mirrored mainstream America. Like Normal Rockwell, Michener showed readers much about themselves, their ideals, morality, values, fears, and aspirations. His sociohistorical literature filled a gigantic void for readers who wanted to know more about history, art, science, technology, geology, and the peoples of the world. Thus, Michener's career coincided with the awakening of a nation. Unlike his predecessors who created an era, Michener was created by an era. His popularity was the result of timing and talent, a coincidence that permitted him to capture a special spirit in America. Through four decades Michener has appealed primarily to what is known as Middle America-the God-fearing, optimistic, morally conscious, center-of-the-road citizens whom Richard M. Nixon identified as the silent majority. Trying to improve themselves, Middle Americans have likened Michener's books to a seminar, and read them as a way of continuing their education. In turn, Michener has become one of the most cherished teacher-authors of all time. Something else must be said about Michener's success. Timing and talent may account for his popularity, but the motivation behind his career is deeply rooted in his own need to be accepted. More than anything, Jim Michener writes as a means of attaining immortality. The money and the fame mean little to him. He wants to be assured that he belongs to a certain people and a specific place, for he is haunted by the feeling that he may become dispossessed. I'm afraid that life has passed me by, he confided late in his career to John DeGroot, a former college classmate, while the two of them sat in the shade of a sprawling oak tree on a farm in Michener's native Bucks County. I've worked too hard, paid too high of a price, and some days look at my life and I get the feeling that it's bankrupt.