'Eruption' is a collaboration between Michael Crichton and James Patterson

Jurassic Park creator Michael Crichton spent years working on a manuscript about a volcano on the verge of a disastrous eruption in Hawaii. After he died in 2008, his wife Sherri found his boxes and boxes of research and decided the novel needed to be finished – so she hit up James Patterson. In today's episode, she and Patterson speak with NPR's Ari Shapiro about how they got Eruption across the finish line more than a decade after her husband's death, and how they managed to pass off the pen throughout the course of the novel. To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy