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Richard Preston ’76, Michael Crichton and the making of “Micro”

Richard Preston’s friendship with Michael Crichton is a strange one—mostly because the two writers never met.

It developed as Preston ’76 finished writing Crichton’s 17th novel, a thriller that finds seven grad students lured to Hawaii for a research project that turns out to be run by a sociopath scientist. The students are plunged into the insect world of Oahu and must struggle to survive.

“At first I thought I would be intimidated,” says Preston, “but I became entranced by Michael’s materials. It became an act of friendship, and I developed a feeling of affection for Michael even though I had never met him.”

Crichton (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park) died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 66. He left behind an unfinished manuscript and the Michael Crichton Trust, which went looking for someone to complete the novel. Lynn Nesbit, Crichton’s literary agent, called Preston in 2009 to let him know about the search. Preston, author of several best sellers himself, was at work on a novel, but the Crichton project sounded “extremely tempting,”and he let Nesbit know he was interested.

He was given the manuscript of the third of the book that Crichton had completed. “There was a poignancy in it. Crichton was working at high speed as if he didn’t know if he had time left to finish it,” Preston says.

Preston (The Hot Zone, The Cobra Event) wrote a proposal of what he thought Crichton’s plan was for the book and supplied an ending (Crichton had not) and a working title: Micro World, a technical term from biology basically referring to organisms the size of insects.

He got word that Sherri, Crichton’s widow, wanted to meet him, and he traveled to Santa Monica, Calif., where he met with her and Bonnie Jordan, Crichton’s longtime personal assistant, in Crichton’s writing space, a nondescript home where Crichton worked in a spare, upstairs bedroom.

“Sherri was so taken that I had come so close to predicting the secret title of the book—Micro—that she thought I should see these notes, and she brought out notebooks and jottings on hotel notepads and told me no one had seen these, not even Nesbit.”

Preston started an outline for the book, which became a 25,000 word “story bible.” The three of them—Preston, Sherri and Jordan—all worked on the book with the two women making suggestions based on their knowledge of Crichton and his discussions with them about the book.

“Michael was obsessed with the literary trope of shrunken humans and watched movies like Fantastic Voyage with Sherri to get it right.”

Preston began the actual writing in the spring of 2010. August of that year found him in Hawaii, down on his hands and knees with a magnifying glass examining the floor of an Oahu rain forest for detail to use in the book.

According to Preston, Crichton “was concerned that young people today don’t have the chance to experience the wonder of nature. So I tried to take readers on an odyssey through the micro world.”
Preston thought part of the task was to recover the lost voice of the author Michael Crichton. He studied videotapes of Crichton for speech patterns, read all of Crichton’s books and did a technical study of Crichton’s writing—how he went about his narratives, how he developed characters, etc.

“It was definitely a project where you had to check your ego at the door,” says Preston, whose book The Hot Zone has sold more than 2.5 million copies. “At one point, Bonnie handed back some of my work and she had crossed out the word ‘meanwhile.’ She told me that Michael never used the word in any of his books, that his narrative scenes were slam-bam and there was no meanwhile in them.”

Sherri insisted that Preston keep the part that Crichton had written, which meant Preston had to adopt Crichton’s style and tone. (Preston won’t say where the transition is in the book).

In going through Crichton’s notes, Preston came upon the words “to JR” jotted in them. Crichton mostly did not dedicate his books to anyone, but those words looked like a dedication to Preston, and he asked Bonnie who J.R. might be. A friend? Family? And then it came to them: Junior. When Michael died, Sherri had been pregnant with their child.

Preston put a photo of John Michael Crichton, Jr., then 3 years old, above his writing space, a way of remembering “the person I was writing for.”

Micro was published in November, and Preston has resumed his own project, which he describes as a departure from his previous books, which were rooted in contemporary scientific discoveries. The coming book creates an imaginary world with non-human characters but “not aliens; it’s not science fiction.”

He hopes to have a first draft done by April and publication before 2014. About Micro, he says he is happy how it turned out and “I like to think Michael would be, too.”

Sharon Paul ’78 will take the baton as Pomona hosts choral festival for first time

Sharon Paul ’78 may never have launched her career in choral conducting if the late William F. Russell, Pomona’s music director from 1951-82, hadn’t been tardy to choir practice. Paul serendipitously took the baton in his stead, unaware of her professor’s arrival.

“I think he watched from the back and thought, ‘Oh! That’s what Sharon should do with her life,’” Paul says. “He saw my abilities, felt I had strengths and nurtured them. I don’t think I would have found conducting if I went to any other school.”

Since then, Paul has carved out an illustrious career in choral conducting and, this month, will return to the Pomona campus as clinician of the 2012 Pacific Southwest Intercollegiate Choral Association (PSICA) Festival, set for Feb. 25. Pomona, a founding member of the association in 1922, is hosting the festival for the first time in the College’s recorded history. Per tradition, the host school’s choral director selects the festival’s clinician.

Donna Di Grazia, Pomona’s choral director and music professor, knew exactly who she wanted. Di Grazia, who is coordinating the festival, points not only to Paul’s talent as a musician and choral conductor, but also to the fact that her “professional work serves as a terrific example of how a liberal arts education can set a foundation that can lead to a significant career in the performing arts.”

Paul, who entered Pomona at age 16, is equally pleased. “I’m so excited, I feel silly. I’m so happy to be coming back,” says Paul, who lives in Oregon with her husband of 16 years and their seventh-grade son. “I’m feeling very nostalgic about my time at Pomona, and the further I get in my career, the more I realize how seminal that time was. I can’t wait to walk the campus, be in the music building, just remember.”

Paul has directed choirs around the globeBerlin, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Russia, Singapore and elsewhere. Holding an M.F.A from UCLA and a D.M.A. in choral conducting from Stanford University, Paul currently serves as professor of music, chair of vocal and choral studies and director of choral activities at the University of Oregon. For eight years prior, she was the artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) and conductor of the organization’s acclaimed ensembles, Chorissima and Virtuose. Paul joined the SFGC following what she called a “quirky career move,” having left a tenured professor position at Chico State to do so.

As clinician of the 2012 festival, which will bring together about a dozen Southern California collegiate choirs to perform for each other, Paul will provide expert critiques of each choir’s performance, lead a two-hour master class comprised of eight singers from each ensemble and conduct these top vocalists in a performance. She also will coach student conductors during the master class. Visiting performers will find in Paul an engaging conductor and teacher, enduringly influenced by her former instructor, Leonard Pronko, a Pomona professor since 1957. “He was the most engaging educator I’d ever seen, and that stuck with me,” Paul says.

Top 5 albums played in the Coop Fountain

From rap to country-western, there always seems to be music playing from behind the counter at the Coop Fountain. So the Coop crew came up with a list of their most-played albums:

1) Graceland by Paul Simon

2) The Beatle’s White Album

3) The Essential Michael Jackson

4) Thriller by Michael Jackson

5) “anything by Johnny Cash”