John D. MacDonald

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 called him "the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller" and dedicated The Sun Dog, a novella from his Four Past Midnight collection, to MacDonald's memory (MacDonald had previously provided the foreward to King's "Night Shift").

MacDonald's education included an MBA from Harvard University, and he served in the OSS in the Far East during World War II. His literary career began accidentally, when while still in the military he wrote a short story and mailed it home for his wife's amusement. Allegedly she submitted it to a magazine without his knowledge, and it was accepted. With that inspiration, MacDonald jumped headfirst into writing after the war, generating story after story for the "pulp magazines", including detective stories, science fiction, and westerns. Then he successfully made the jump to longer fiction as the boom in paperback novels took hold. His first novel was The Brass Cupcake, published in 1950 by Fawcett Publications' Gold Medal Books.

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.) The novels usually feature an appearance by a sidekick known only as "Meyer" who is a retired economist, along with an ever-changing array of female companions. As Sherlock Holmes had his well-known address on Baker Street, McGee had his trademark lodgings on the houseboat Busted Flush, named for the poker hand with which he won it, docked at slip F-18 at Bahia Mar marina in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Various writers have acknowledged the trail which MacDonald and McGee blazed, including Carl Hiaasen in an introduction to a 1990s edition of The Deep Blue Good-by. Said Hiaasen, "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."

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 the Busted Flush was usually moored in the McGee series) and meet a local who was the prototype for McGee's sidekick Meyer. The slip is empty, with a small plaque mentioning the Busted Flush.

MacDonald's 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 and Everything was filmed as a 1980 TV movie that failed to capture the spirit of the original novel.

MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania.

Novels

The Travis McGee series, in chronological order:

---

• The Deep Blue Good-by
• Nightmare in Pink
• A Purple Place for Dying
• The Quick Red Fox
• A Deadly Shade of Gold
• Bright Orange for the Shroud
• Darker than Amber
• One Fearful Yellow Eye
• Pale Gray for Guilt
• The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper
• The Long Lavender Look
• A Tan and Sandy Silence
• Dress Her in Indigo
• The Scarlet Ruse
• The Turquoise Lament
• The Dreadful Lemon Sky
• The Empty Copper Sea
• The Green Ripper
• Free Fall in Crimson
• Cinnamon Skin
• The Lonely Silver Rain

Selected novels not in the Travis McGee series:

---

• Barrier Island
• The Brass Cupcake
• Condominium
• Cry Hard, Cry Fast
• Deadly Welcome
• The Executioners (republished as Cape Fear)
• A Flash of Green (not a Travis McGee, despite the color name)
• The Girl, The Gold Watch and Everything
• One More Sunday
• Please Write for Details
• Slam the Big Door
• Where is Janice Gantry?

Short story collections:

---

• End of the Tiger and Other Stories
• S*E*V*E*N
• Other Times, Other Worlds
• The Good Old Stuff
• More Good Old Stuff

Science Fiction:

---

• Ballroom of the Skies (1951, novella)
• Wine of the Dreamers (1950)

External links

John D. MacDonald Collection at University of Florida (http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/manuscript/guides/MacDonald4.htm)de:John D. MacDonald sk:John D. MacDonald