SOURCE: "Writer James Michener Dies at 90," in USA Today, October 16, 1997, p. 4A.

[In the following obituary, Omicinski lauds Michener's life and works.]

James Michener's novels are hard to put down.

Indeed, some are difficult to pick up, too.

Michener, who last week ordered doctors to remove him from life-sustaining kidney dialysis, died Thursday in Austin, Texas. He was 90.

Millions who have read Michener's engrossing and best-selling doorstopper sagas like Hawaii, Chesapeake and Poland, find them uplifting as well as arm-testing experiences.

For 50 years the social-studies-teacher-turned-novelist delivered the goods in plot, history, writing and heft. His maze-plotted novels—peopled by dozens of characters in exotic faraway places readers might never see except through his eyes—spilled Niagaras of fact and fable.

One biographer called him "a master reporter of his generation."

Readers loved it, scooping up more than 75 million Micheners.

Having read him, readers felt they understood complex societies...