John D. MacDonald

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John D. MacDonald

Born July 24, 1916
Sharon, Pennsylvania
Died December 28, 1986 (Aged 70)
Occupation novelist, short story writer
Nationality U.S.
Writing period 1945-1986
Genres Detective fiction
Influenced Carl Hiaasen, Stephen King, Spider Robinson

John Dann MacDonald (July 24, 1916 – December 28, 1986), writing as John D. MacDonald, was an American writer best known for his series of detective novels featuring protagonist Travis McGee. MacDonald was named a grand master of the Mystery Writers of America in 1972 and won the American Book Award in 1980. Stephen King praised him in his book "On Writing" (Hodder and Stoughton, 2000, ISBN 0340769963) as "the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller."[citation needed]

Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, MacDonald enrolled at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania but dropped out during his sophomore year to work menial jobs in New York City. While attending the School of Management at Syracuse University, he met Dorothy Prentiss. They married in 1937, and he graduated from Syracuse the following year. In 1939, he received an MBA from Harvard University.

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In 1940 MacDonald accepted a direct commission in the army Ordnance Corp, but later served in the OSS in the Far East during World War II. While still in the military, his literary career began accidentally when he wrote a short story in 1945 and mailed it home for the amusement of his wife. She submitted it to the magazine Story without his knowledge, and it was accepted. In the first four months after his discharge, he completely concentrated on writing short stories, generating some 800,000 words and losing 20 pounds while typing during 14-hour daily sessions seven days a week. It netted him only hundreds of rejection slips, but in the fifth month, a $40 sale to the pulp magazine Dime Detective set his career in motion, and he continued to sell to the detective, mystery, adventure, sports, western and science fiction pulps. As the boom in paperback novels expanded, he successfully made the jump to longer fiction with his first novel, The Brass Cupcake, published in 1950 by Fawcett Publications' Gold Medal Books. His science fiction included the story "Cosmetics" in Astounding (1948) and the novels Wine of the Dreamer (1951) and Ballroom of the Skies (1952).

MacDonald's protagonists were often intelligent and introspective men, sometimes with a hard cynical streak. Travis McGee, the "salvage consultant" and "knight in rusting armor," was all of that. He first appeared in the 1964 novel The Deep Blue Good-by and was last seen in The Lonely Silver Rain in 1985. All titles in the 21-volume series include a color, and the novels usually feature an ever-changing array of female companions, plus an appearance by a sidekick known only as "Meyer," a retired economist. As Sherlock Holmes had his well-known address on Baker Street, McGee had his trademark lodgings on his 52-foot houseboat Busted Flush, named for the poker hand that started the run of luck in which he won her. She's docked at Slip F-18, Bahia Mar marina, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Various writers have acknowledged the trail that MacDonald and McGee blazed, including Carl Hiaasen in an introduction to a 1990s edition of The Deep Blue Good-by: "Most readers loved MacDonald's work because he told a rip-roaring yarn. I loved it because he was the first modern writer to nail Florida dead-center, to capture all its languid sleaze, racy sense of promise, and breath-grabbing beauty."

Most of the current crop of Florida-based mystery writers acknowledge a debt to MacDonald, including Randy Wayne White, James Hall, Les Standiford, Jonathon King, Tim Dorsey to name just a few.

Homage to MacDonald was evident in the 1981-88 CBS-TV series Simon & Simon with scenes showing Rick Simon's boat docked at Slip F-18 in San Diego.

The science fiction writer Spider Robinson has made it clear that he is also among MacDonald's admirers. The bartender in Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, Mike Callahan, is married to Lady Sally McGee, whose last name is almost certainly a tribute to Travis. In a recent sequel to the Callahan's series, Callahan's Key, a group of regulars from the former saloon decide they've had enough of Long Island, so they move to Key West, Florida, in a colorful caravan of modified school buses. On their way to Key West, they stop at a marina near Fort Lauderdale specifically to visit Slip F-18 (where Busted Flush was usually moored) and meet a local who was the prototype for McGee's sidekick Meyer. The slip is empty, with a small plaque mentioning Busted Flush.

MacDonald's novel Soft Touch was the basis for the film Man-Trap (1961). His 1957 novel The Executioners was filmed in 1962 as Cape Fear, a dark thriller of strong suspense and menace. Martin Scorsese directed the 1991 remake of Cape Fear. Among other film or television adaptations of MacDonald's work, the 1984 A Flash of Green was probably the most successful. When Travis McGee arrived on the big screen in 1970 with Darker Than Amber, the film received favorable reviews from Roger Ebert and other critics. The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything was adapted for a 1980 TV movie that failed to capture the spirit of the original novel. The novella "Linda" was filmed twice for television, in 1973 (with Stella Stevens in the title role) and 1993 (with Virginia Madsen). The 1980 TV movie Condominium, based on MacDonald's novel, starred Dan Haggerty and Barbara Eden.

In chronological order:

  • The character of Meyer is widely believed to be based on John D. MacDonald himself. A rumored final Travis McGee novel (presumably narrated by Meyer), titled Black Border for McGee, has never been confirmed to exist. This has also been referred to as A Letter Etched in Black.
  • In Stephen King's novel 'Salem's Lot, a minor character tells the novelist hero: "You ought to write books with better sense. Like the guy who writes those Travis McGee stories. A man can sink his teeth into one of those."
  • Some fans may have come to McGee and MacDonald through Jimmy Buffett's reference in a song called "Incommunicado": "...Travis McGee's still in Cedar Key, That's what ol' John MacDonald said...."
  • The actual Bahia Mar marina exists in quite luxurious appointment in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Upon walking through the huge maze of boat slips looking for Slip F- 18, one absolutely does come to a perpetually empty large slip at F- 18. As pointed out in an homage work of fiction by another author, there does exist a bronze plaque memorializing both the writer, whose memory so many cherish, and the slightly tarnished white knight character of Travis McGee. It is quite rare for a body of fictitious work to be so memorable as to commandeer a valuable slip at an upscale marina complex.

Merrill, Hugh. The Red Hot Typewriter: The Life and Times of John D. MacDonald. New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2000.

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