[1] Usually known for his multi-generational epics of historical fiction, The Fires of Spring was written as a partially autobiographical bildungsroman in which Michener's proxy, young orphan David Harper, searches for meaning and romance in pre-World War II Pennsylvania.

[2][page needed] In reflecting on The Fires of Spring in his memoir The World Is My Home, Michener wrote of its importance: I was willing to write The Fires of Spring out of order because I felt that it was a book that had to be written even though I was in my forties and it was the kind of book normally written when one is in one’s twenties or thirties.

I have never regretted that decision, because through the years it has probably brought me more mail from readers than any other book I’ve written, having caught the imagination of young people who were pondering the direction their lives should take.

I doubt that I have ever had a letter about it from a reader past the age of thirty-five, except to recall that it had a life-changing effect when he or she read the book as a teenager.

[2]: 364 In the New York Times, William DuBois compared The Fires of Spring unfavorably to Tales of the South Pacific, and notes that the story begins well but is overtaken by heavy-handed melodrama.