"Citizen' Michener felt debt to country Series: FIRST OF TWO PARTS SECOND Edition

In his last novel, this "famous American writer" returned to his Pennsylvania past to create the present, as he did 42 years earlier in "The Fires of Spring." Curiously, he did not include among his Bucks County neighbor's Broadway milestones, "South Pacific." For...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe morning call (Allentown, Pa.)
Main Author Richard Kepler Brunner, Special to The Morning Call - Freelance
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Allentown, Pa Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 04.02.2007
Subjects
Michener, James A (James Albert) (1907-1997)
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Summary:In his last novel, this "famous American writer" returned to his Pennsylvania past to create the present, as he did 42 years earlier in "The Fires of Spring." Curiously, he did not include among his Bucks County neighbor's Broadway milestones, "South Pacific." For it was the musical version of his 1947 Pulitzer Prize novel, "Tales of the South Pacific," that, Michener told me, provided "the seed money to invest in literary plant expansion." Indeed, royalties from book and musical ensured Jim and wife Mari many "enchanted evenings" -- including an awards ceremony in the East Room of the White House. Michener has been a good neighbor to the Lehigh Valley. For six years (1962-68), the Allentown Art Museum was home to 100 canvases in The Michener Collection of American Paintings; among the artists represented were Reginald Marsh, Robert Motherwell and Ben Shahn. The author's presence at Lehigh Valley civic, academic and political functions added a pinch of zest to these occasions, even to those participants who didn't know his South Pacific from North Wales.
ISSN:0884-5557