Should Michael Crichton's Upcoming Posthumous Novels Be Published?

For hundreds of years, the safes, files and computer hard drives of legendary authors have been mined by people who may or may not have authorization to take unfinished novels and publish them. We've seen posthumous works published by just about every major writer from around the world. Everybody from Tolstoy, Hemingway to Dr. Seuss had books published after death and with critics saying those respective authors wouldn't have wanted it. Based on what we know about Tolstoy and Hemingway at least, chances are they wouldn't have been happy with "The Living Corpse" or "The Garden of Eden" being published decades beyond their editorial control.

The same could be said of Dr. Seuss, even though his widow still says otherwise. His posthumously-released "Daisy-Head Mayzie" is obviously a masterpiece, regardless of whether Seuss wanted it out there.

And then there's the late Michael Crichton who unsurprisingly had multiple novel ideas sitting in his computer hard drive prior to his untimely death. Because his novels have always been so prophetic, it's obviously hard for his friends, associates and publishing company to resist not dipping into his arsenal of unfinished works. According to the press, Crichton's assistant found these works on the late author's computer and one book that could arguably be considered to be his next major novel. Now that the media revealed that it's a story about pirates in 17^th century Jamaica, it sounds like something Crichton would have wanted published.

But how do we really know, particularly when Crichton was known for his perfectionism? It shouldn't surprise us that most of the posthumous novels published over the decades were from authors who were known for their intense perfectionist personas. Chances are good that their arsenal of uncompleted works were there because they didn't think the finished product was worth seeing the light of day. That argument consistently comes up in this scenario, with always a counterargument of why didn't the author discard the work if he or she didn't want it discovered after death?

Perhaps the only deduced answer to that would be within the length of time put into the work and not wanting to destroy any record of that hard work.

Those of us who write as a career and who've written novels know that crafting a novel isn't easy. After you spend a year's time writing a novel and then find out in the end that it's really not something you want published, it only makes sense that we want tangible proof of our labors--even if it's just for our own eyes, temporarily. Whether that explains away the posthumous novels published over the years or why Crichton kept other works on his computer, it's a mystery of the mind in any writer.

From my own perspective after writing a few novels in the past, I can see the habit of having a novel you know doesn't work being kept on the computer hard drive for years, just in the hope we'll have time to go back and edit it to the point of workability. We all know it's rare when you can salvage a novel that doesn't work. Yet seeing it sitting there in the hard drive gives a sense of satisfaction of our wares and time spent creating it.

In the case of Crichton, we may be looking at a completely different sensibility to writing. Perhaps he was a writer who just had an assembly line ready to go without any thought of thinking he had a couple of inferior novels stuck in the purgatory of his hard drive...
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Based on the concept of the earlier-mentioned posthumous 17^th century pirate novel ("Pirate Latitudes"), we may be looking at another Crichton novel that predicted fascination or direct involvement with a controversial issue. Ironic it is that interest in pirates is at an all-time high now what with the ones from Somalia as well as ones from the past and other parts of the world. Crichton obviously sensed that emerging interest and will likely provide a fun read from beyond the grave when the book is published this November. If you can give that a pass as one he would have published anyway, reports are another novel he didn't finish was also found and will be published down the road.

Yes, unfinished novels are still the biggest question mark in the world of publishing the works of departed authors. Ernest Hemingway was dealt that blow in death by having a couple novels he never completed being finished by another author who supposedly felt the gist of where the novel was going. When critics said otherwise, the publishing world found out the kind of backlash the public gives toward another writer finishing a famous author's work. That apparently isn't going to stop Crichton's publisher (HarperCollins) from having that second novel completed by someone else.

No, it shouldn't be surprising it'll be done when the publishing world is hemorrhaging money lately. HarperCollins probably figures the Crichton brand name is too strong for people to resist buying it, particularly when it's going to be a novel exploring technology and a follow-up to his last novel while alive ("Next"). Despite this publishing plan, HarperCollins says they don't intend to keep publishing future works discovered in Crichton's computer as a way toward creating a posthumous franchise.

Should that mean the publishing world finally understands the potential backlash to publishing works posthumously, then we may be spared the imagined thought of authors spinning in their graves like an unchained tire on ice. Those of us who respect all the authors who've had posthumous novels published find it consistently disturbing that no famous author seems able to keep their unfinished works hidden from view.

At least great writers of the future have a chance now at peace in knowing their unseen works could finally have eternal rest within the bowels and microchip-laden graveyard of their computer. As with a real grave, only people who know us and proved our trust should have the right to peer in to see the remnants...

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/books/06crichton.html?_r=3&ref=arts