Research Paper on:
Maturity in Legacy, a Novel by James A. Michener

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the literary or academic worlds. BBLegacy.doc JAMES A. MICHENER: Legacy (1987) Written by for the Paperstore, Inc., October 2000 Introduction James A.  Michener did not begin writing until he was forty years old, consequently there is a great deal of maturity about all of his work, which touched on religious and racial  tolerance, hard work and self-reliance, themes which made him popular with the reading public but not particularly in the literary or academic worlds. Personal Life (1907 - 1997) Adopted as  an infant, Michener claims, "I grew up in a bundle of love, always seven or eight kids around. ... Great yakkity-yakking and laughter all the time. I grew  up maybe the best way a kid could if he wanted to be a writer, just surrounded by excitement." Before he was old enough to drive, he had already hitchhiked  his way up and down the entire eastern seaboard, a trip that fueled his desire to travel even farther. "I lived in a kind of dream world thats vanished," Michener  once said. "But it was the making of me." The Story Teller But his true love - and his true gift - was telling stories. He approached his craft  with methodical, journeyman style. As he told a radio interviewer in 1992: "My job is to be a hard-working man who sits at a modern typewriter and tries to write  books that a lot of people will want to read." As an example, Hawaii (1959) was an instant hit. The novels scope was audacious, its approach striking. In it, Michener  swept through hundreds of years of history by creating fictional families and then tracing their lives through generations. After "Hawaii," Michener would use the same format for many of