The decades-long build to Eruption

WHEN MICHAEL CRICHTON AND HIS WIFE SHERRI FIRST started dating, all they did was hike. Every weekend there they were, taking in the scenery from the coasts of California to the mountains of Hawaii. The island of Kauai was their favorite place, its rivers carving through volcanic rock and steep, jagged cliffs cutting the sky. The couple would wake before dawn to be first ones out on the trails, and together they'd take in the sunrise.

- ANNABEL GUTTERMAN

Those miles were sacred-and one of the few times that Sherri could get a window into Michael's writing process. It was the early 2000s, and Michael was already a literary phenomenon and bona fide screenwriting machine with novels and movie adaptations that made millions and spun franchises that continue today. Chief among them: Westworld, Twister, and Jurassic Park. At any given moment, he could be in the throes of research on multiple projects. But on those hikes with Sherri, he kept circling in on just one. "It was early in our relationship, when he said he had this book that was set in Hawaii and based on a volcano," she remembers. "He would scratch his head-he was constantly working on it in his mind." 

Now, decades after its inception, that novel will arrive on June 3. Set on the Big Island, Eruption is an epic thriller about an impending volcanic eruption, and a government secret with potentially fatal implications. At the center of it all is John MacGregor, or Mac, a 30-something geologist who must lead a team of researchers through increasingly dangerous territory all while trying to save the lives of as many people as he can. It's classic Crichton: a cinematic story rooted in science and infused with plenty of heart, tackling big themes like love and loss. But its journey to publication is unlike anything the author could have ever anticipated. In 2008, only three years into their marriage, Michael died of cancer while Sherri was pregnant with their son. Though the book that would become Eruption was the furthest thing from her mind at the time, Sherri knew she'd return to it one day. Eventually, she would enlist the help of another prolific author, James Patterson, to do so. But it would be more than a decade before she was ready to find him.