John D. MacDonald


John Dann MacDonald was an American writer of novels and short stories. He is known for his thrillers. A prolific author of crime and suspense novels, many set in his adopted home of Florida, he was one of the most successful American novelists of his time. MacDonald sold an estimated 70 million books. His best-known works include the popular and critically acclaimed Travis McGee series and his 1957 novel The Executioners, which was filmed twice as Cape Fear, once in 1962 and again in 1991.

Early life

MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, where his father, Eugene Macdonald, worked for the Savage Arms Corporation. The family relocated to Utica, New York in 1926, his father becoming treasurer of the Utica office of Savage Arms. In 1934, MacDonald was given a choice by his father: spend another year in school as a post-graduate, or go to Europe for several weeks. He chose Europe and this began an interest in travel and photography.
After graduating from high school, he enrolled at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, but he quit during his sophomore year. MacDonald worked at menial jobs in New York City, then was admitted to Syracuse University, where he met his future wife, Dorothy Prentiss. They married secretly in Pennsylvania in 1937, and had a public ceremony in Utica later that year. He graduated from Syracuse University the next year. The couple had one son, Maynard.
In 1939, MacDonald received an MBA from Harvard University. MacDonald later used his education in business and economics in crafting his fiction. Several of his novels are either set in the business world or involve shady financial or real estate deals.
In 1940, MacDonald accepted a direct commission as a first lieutenant of the United States Army Ordnance Corps. During World War II, he served in the Office of Strategic Services in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations; this region featured in many of his earlier short stories and novels. He was discharged in September 1945 as a lieutenant colonel. Dear Dordo: The World War II Letters of Dorothy and John D. MacDonald was published by Peppertree Press in 2022.
In 1951 he moved his family from Utica, New York to Florida, eventually settling in Sarasota.

Writing career

Early fiction

MacDonald's first published short story, "G-Robot", appeared in the July 1936 Double Action Gang magazine. Following his 1945 discharge from the army, MacDonald spent four months writing short stories, generating some 800,000 words and losing while typing 14 hours a day, seven days a week. He received hundreds of rejection slips, but "Cash on the Coffin!" appeared in the May 1946 pulp magazine Detective Tales. He would eventually sell nearly 500 short stories to various mystery and adventure fiction magazines. Selections from MacDonald's early magazine fiction, somewhat revised, were later republished in two collections, The Good Old Stuff and More Good Old Stuff,
Starting with The Brass Cupcake in 1950, MacDonald wrote more than forty standalone crime thrillers and domestic dramas, most published as paperback originals and many of them set in Florida. Among them was The Executioners, which was filmed twice as Cape Fear and later republished under that title. MacDonald also wrote three science fiction novels, including The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything, which was filmed for television. After introducing his series character Travis McGee in 1964, MacDonald concentrated mostly on that series, although he did publish four additional standalone novels.

Travis McGee

In 1964, MacDonald published The Deep Blue Good-by, the first of 21 novels starring Travis McGee, a self-described "salvage consultant" who recovers stolen property for a fee of 50 percent, and who narrates his adventures in the first person. McGee originally was to be called Dallas McGee, but MacDonald dropped that name after the Kennedy assassination, borrowing instead the name of Travis Air Force Base. The McGee adventures, each of which has a color in the title, mostly play out in Florida, the Caribbean, or Mexico, and many of them feature his friend and sidekick Dr. Meyer Meyer, a renowned economist who helps Travis deconstruct elaborate swindles and cases of business corruption.

Death

Following complications of coronary artery bypass surgery, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10, 1986. He died at the age of seventy, on December 28, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is buried in Poland, New York. He was survived by his wife Dorothy and a son, Maynard.

Media adaptations

Influence

Most current Floridian mystery writers acknowledge a debt to MacDonald, including Randy Wayne White, James Hall, Les Standiford, Jonathon King, and Tim Dorsey. In 1972, the Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon MacDonald its highest honor, the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement and consistent quality. Stephen King praised MacDonald as "the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller." Kingsley Amis said MacDonald "is by any standards a better writer than Saul Bellow, only MacDonald writes thrillers and Bellow is a human-heart chap, so guess who wears the top-grade laurels."
In a May 2016 The New York Times interview, author Nathaniel Philbrick said: "I recently discovered John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. Every time I finish one of those slender books, I tell myself it’s time to take a break and return to the pile on the night stand but then find myself deep into another McGee novel. Before there were Lee Child and Carl Hiaasen, there was MacDonald — as prescient and verbally precise as anyone writing today can possibly hope to be."
In the novels, McGee had his lodgings on his houseboat, the Busted Flush, docked at Slip F-18, marina Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In 1987, the Friends of Libraries U.S.A. installed a "literary landmark plaque" around what would be Slip F-18 in Bahia Mar. After the docks were remodeled, the plaque was moved to the Dockmaster's office.
Jimmy Buffett wrote and recorded the song "Incommunicado" in 1981 whose 1st verse references both McGee & MacDonald, albeit using Cedar Key to rhyme with McGee instead of Bahia Mar.

Travis McGee series

; Originally in paperbackThe Deep Blue Good-byNightmare in PinkA Purple Place for DyingThe Quick Red FoxA Deadly Shade of GoldBright Orange for the ShroudDarker than AmberOne Fearful Yellow EyePale Gray for GuiltThe Girl in the Plain Brown WrapperDress Her in IndigoThe Long Lavender LookA Tan and Sandy SilenceThe Scarlet Ruse
; Originally in hardcover
YearTitleHighest
NYT position
reached		Number
of weeks
on NYT list		Notes
1973The Turquoise Lament——first McGee to appear initially in hardcover
1975The Dreadful Lemon Sky323
1978The Empty Copper Sea613a little uncertain due to NYT strike
1979The Green Ripper414
1981Free Fall in Crimson320
1982Cinnamon Skin313
1985The Lonely Silver Rain312

Source: The New York Times Best Seller list Figures are for the Adult Hardcover Fiction lists, 1973 through 1985: highest position reached and total number of weeks on list. A "—" indicates it did not make the list. Note that the Times list consisted of a Top 10 from 1973 through 1976, but a Top 15 in the covered years after.
; Also
  • ''The Travis McGee Quiz Book''

Non-series novels (excluding science fiction)

The Brass CupcakeMurder for the BrideJudge Me NotWeep for MeThe DamnedDead Low TideThe Neon JungleCancel All Our VowsAll These CondemnedArea of SuspicionContrary PleasureA Bullet for Cinderella Cry Hard, Cry FastApril EvilBorder Town Girl / LindaMurder in the Wind You Live Once Death TrapThe Price of MurderThe Empty TrapA Man of AffairsThe Executioners The DeceiversClemmieSoft TouchDeadly WelcomeThe Beach GirlsPlease Write for DetailsThe CrossroadsSlam the Big DoorThe Only Girl in the GameThe End of the NightWhere is Janice Gantry?One Monday We Killed Them AllA Key to the SuiteA Flash of GreenI Could Go On Singing On the RunThe DrownerThe Last One LeftCondominiumOne More Sunday
  • ''Barrier Island''

Anthologies

  • ''The Lethal Sex''

Short story collections

End of the Tiger and Other StoriesS*E*V*E*NThe Good Old Stuff – A collection of select pulp magazine short stories from the beginning of his career, with technology and pop culture references frequently updated to bring the stories into the 1980s
  • *"Murder for Money" – Detective Tales, April 1952 as "All That Blood Money Can Buy"
  • *"Death Writes the Answer" – New Detective Magazine, May 1950 as "This One Will Kill You"
  • *"Miranda" – Fifteen Mystery Stories, October 1950
  • *"They Let Me Live" – Doc Savage Magazine, July–August 1947
  • *"Breathe No More" – Detective Tales, May 1950 as "Breathe No More, My Lovely"
  • *"Some Hidden Grave" – Detective Tales, September 1950 as "The Lady is a Corpse"
  • *"A Time for Dying" – New Detective Magazine, September 1948 as "Tune In on Station Homicide"
  • *"Noose for a Tigress" – Dime Detective, August 1952
  • *"Murder in Mind" – Mystery Book Magazine, Winter 1949
  • *"Check Out at Dawn" – Detective Tales, May 1950 as "Night Watch"
  • *"She Cannot Die" – Doc Savage Magazine, May–June 1948 as "The Tin Suitcase"
  • *"Dead on the Pin" – Mystery Book Magazine, Summer 1950
  • *"A Trap for the Careless" – Detective Tales, March 1950 TwoMore Good Old Stuff
  • *Deadly Damsel
  • *State Police Report That...
  • *Death for Sale
  • *A Corpse in His Dreams
  • *I Accuse Myself
  • *A Place to Live
  • *Neighborly Interest
  • *The Night Is Over
  • *Secret Stain
  • *Even up the Odds
  • *Verdict
  • *The High Gray Walls of Hate
  • *Unmarried Widow
  • *You Remember Jeanie The Annex and Other Stories – A very limited edition of 350 printed in Finland containing MacDonald's favorite short stories

Science fiction

Wine of the Dreamers Ballroom of the SkiesThe Girl, the Gold Watch & EverythingOther Times, Other Worlds
  • ''Time and Tomorrow''

Non-fiction

The House GuestsNo Deadly DrugNothing Can Go Wrong A Friendship: The Letters of Dan Rowan and John D. MacDonald 1967-1974Reading for Survival
  • ''Dear Dordo: The World War II Letters of Dorothy and John D. MacDonald''