Arthur Hailey (5 April 1920 – 24 November 2004) was a British/Canadian novelist, whose works have sold more than 170 million copies in 40 languages. Most of the novels are set within one major industry, such as hotels, banks or airlines, and explore the particular human conflicts sparked-off by that environment. They are notable for their plain style, extreme realism, based on months of detailed research, and a sympathetic down-to-earth hero with whom the reader can easily identify.
Born in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, Hailey served in the Royal Air Force from the start of World War II during 1939 until 1947, when he went to live in Canada.
Interviewed for the book Authors Take Sides on the Falklands, Hailey supported the British government's military action.
Hailey's last novel, Detective (1997), is a mystery told from the perspective of a Miami homicide detective, a former Catholic priest who has lost his religion. Hailey told the Walden Book Report that his aim in writing this book was to share his own thoughts about religion without "mak[ing] it a lecture." He says that he lost his own faith while serving in Cyprus during World War II, and that since ex-priests have many occupations he might as well give his protagonist an exciting one.
Airport novel(s) represent a literary genre that is not so much defined by its plot or cast of stock characters, as much as it is by the social function it serves. An airport novel is typically a fairly long but fast-paced novel of intrigue or adventure that is stereotypically found in the reading fare offered by airport newsstands for travellers to read in the rounds of sitting and waiting that constitute air travel.
Considering the marketing of fiction as a trade, airport novels occupy a niche similar to the one that once was occupied by pulp magazine fiction and other reading materials typically sold at newsstands and kiosks to travellers. This pulp fiction is one obvious source for the genre; sprawling historical novels of exotic adventure such as those by James Michener and James Clavell are another source. In French, such novels are called romans de gare, "railway station novels", suggesting that writers in France were aware of this potential market at an even earlier date.
Airport is a bestselling 1968 novel by Arthur Hailey about a large metropolitan airport and the personalities of the people who use, rely and suffer from its operation. It was adapted to make a major motion picture starring, among others, Burt Lancaster, George Kennedy, Dean Martin and Van Heflin and inspired three sequel movies: Airport 1975,Airport '77 and The Concorde ... Airport '79.
The story takes place at Lincoln International, a fictional Chicago airport based very loosely on O'Hare International Airport.
The action mainly centers on Mel Bakersfeld, the Airport General Manager. His devotion to his job is tearing apart his family and his marriage to his wife Cindy, who resents his use of his job at the airport as a device to avoid going to various after-hours events she wants him to participate in, as she attempts to climb into the social circles of Chicago's elite. His problems in his marriage are further exacerbated by his romantically charged friendship with a lovely divorcee, Trans America Airlines passenger relations manager Tanya Livingston.
Hotel is a 1965 novel by Arthur Hailey. It is the story of an independent New Orleans hotel, the St. Gregory, and its management's struggle to regain profitability and avoid being assimilated into the O'Keefe chain of hotels. The St. Gregory is supposedly based on the Roosevelt Hotel, although the old St. Charles Hotel is also cited as the basis for the novel.
The novel was adapted into a movie in 1967, and in 1983 Aaron Spelling turned into a television series, airing for five years on ABC. In the TV series the St. Gregory Hotel was moved from New Orleans to San Francisco.
Just above my head, I can hear your heart beating
but I would not stand to let you in
so I forgot what you long for
and now what your terror is
and stand side by side
in the end we'll decide
when the pictures too scared for the work or
well its for the walls we could never break down
well this place is left empty
there's too many places
for the ones who cant hang around
yeah your hum hem home
or hum home hem
is there something that seeps slowly from your skin?
or oh does it drip drolly from your sense of
whats a sin? i know that its never been easy
but so many things, oh they've just never been
oh, no no no.
but its true your heart, it was always a pure one
you can feel it in each second guess
but the things you prescribed for your self-preservation
were mildly destructive at best, we were patient
and wondered sometimes, "where you headed?"
but oh no, no we never knew
despite all the things that you dreaded