James A. Michener: Major Works

By the end of 1957, James A. Michener had emerged as a major player in the American literary scene.  Over the past few years, Michener had been outlining plans for several novels.  Perhaps spurred by the ongoing campaign for Hawaiian statehood, Michener selected Hawaii as the locale for his next book and in March of 1958, he and Mari moved to Waikiki.  Here, Michener partnered with a local Hawaiian scholar, Clarice Taylor, to research the geological and cultural history of the islands (May, 2005). 

The resulting epic tale spanned from the creation of the islands to the present day, weaving folklore and history into a multigenerational saga that followed Polynesian, Japanese, Chinese, and Caucasian families who settled in Hawaii.  Published in 1959, Hawaii quickly became a best seller and helped establish Michener’s trademark style of epic, historical novels.

In 1963, Michener set out to write another epic, this time detailing the history of Israel and Judaism.  The Source framed the origins and rise of Judaism through the story of an archaeological dig.  It was published in 1965 and quickly became a bestseller.  Not long after The Source was released, Michener suffered a massive heart attack and took nearly a year off from writing to recover.

After recovering, Michener continued to travel, visiting Spain to write The Drifters, a fictionalized account of many of the young travelers he met on his previous trips to Spain (Hayes, 1984).  The novel, which focused on “dropouts” in the late 1960’s, explored Vietnam era issues such as sex, drugs, and war - a departure from Michener’s typical style. 

Upon returning to the US, Michener turned his sights to a novel he had been planning for decades.  The book, which would be published under the title Centennial in 1974, focused on Colorado and was based on a draft of a story Michener wrote in 1950 called Jefferson (May, 2005).  Centennial covered the entire history of Colorado, starting with its geologic origins and carrying all the way through to the Watergate scandal.  The novel quickly became a bestseller and cemented Michener’s status as a major American author.

For his next novel, Michener again applied his trademark style to a geographic region, this time focusing on the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland.  Chesapeake, a bestselling novel explored the history of the Chesapeake region, framed through the narratives of three families from the 1580s up to the late 1970s.

The ink was barely dry on Chesapeake when Michener started on his next project, an epic novel about the history of South Africa.  With the help of Errol Uys, a South African Reader’s Digest correspondent, Michener spent several months in 1978 researching the book in South Africa. The story, which relied on Michener’s trademark interwoven narrative style, followed the history of South Africa from prehistoric bushmen through the post-colonial rise of apartheid.  The Covenant was arguably Michener’s most controversial book.  It was banned by the South African government, presumably for bringing the racist views of white South Africans to the attention of Michener’s huge readership (May, 2005).  American critics gave it mixed reviews, calling into question Michener’s Eurocentric treatment of the stories of black South Africans.  Regardless of the controversy surrounding the novel, American readers flocked to the book, elevating it to bestseller status shortly after its publication in 1980. 

In typical Michener fashion, he began writing his next book immediately after The Covenant was released.  Michener’s 1982 novel, Space, was inspired by his work as a civilian consultant on the NASA Advisory Board.  The book was a fictionalized account of the United State space program.  Spanning just four decades, it was an unusual format for Michener but nevertheless became a bestseller.

For his next work, Michener turned his sights to Poland, where opposition to Soviet rule was causing political unrest.  At the urging of his friend, prominent Polish-American businessman, Ed Piszek, Michener decided the time was ripe for a tale of Polish history (May, 2005).  The novel, aptly titled Poland, became a bestseller in 1983.

Michener returned his attention to American tales in the early 1980’s.  He had expressed interest in writing about Texas for several years, and in 1981 was invited by the University of Texas to write and research his next book in Austin (May, 2005).  In 1985 Random House published the novel releasing an unprecedented 750,000 copies in the first printing.  Their confidence in Michener’s popularity was well founded, as the book became a best seller the first week it was released (May, 2005).

In 1983, Michener was invited by Governor Bill Sheffield to live and write on the Sheldon Jackson College campus in Sitka, Alaska (May, 2005).  The resulting bestselling novel, Alaska, followed native Alaskans and white settlers from the ice age up to statehood. 

Alaska, however, would turn out to be Michener’s last major work.  Michener was now 80, and though he continued to write, his later works fell short of the high standard he had set in his earlier books.  Before his death in 1997, he published several more novels - Caribbean, Recessional, The Novel, and Mexico. A few of these books were popular with critics and readers, but none reached the bestseller status that Michener was accustomed to.

Photo credit: courtesy of James A. Michener; Cover credit: goodreads.com

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Photo credit: courtesy of James A. Michener