Travis McGee is my man, and today is a special day in his life. His creator is my favorite all-around novelist. Read on, in this from The Writer's Almanac...
It's the birthday of mystery novelist John D. MacDonald, born in Sharon, Pennsylvania (1916). He wrote a series of novels, including The Deep Blue Good-By (1964) and Nightmare in Pink (1964), featuring Travis McGee, a beach bum detective who lives on a houseboat that he won in a poker game.
While he was serving in the army during World War II, MacDonald entertained his wife by writing her fictionalized stories in his letters. She liked one story so much that she typed it up and sent it to the magazine Story, where it was published. MacDonald was so surprised and happy that he devoted himself to writing.
He had four months of severance pay when he came home from the Army, so he spent those four months writing seven days a week, 14 hours a day. Everyone but his wife thought he was shell-shocked. By the end of the year, he was making a living selling short stories to pulp fiction magazines. He published 73 stories in 1949 alone.
He used his mystery novels to criticize what he called American junk culture: fast food, bad TV, and land development. He wrote, "I am wary of a lot of things, such as ... time clocks, newspapers, mortgages, sermons, miracle fabrics, deodorants ... pageants, progress, and manifest destiny."
** Congrats to "Sandge," winner of the most recent Mayberry After Midnight contest. A very impressive essay by Sandge is found in the comments of the previous post: he ties in Gomer Pyle and the World Rotary Tiller Championships in Emerson, Ark. Very impressive...
