John D MacDonald vs. Doc Savage

Babette Rosmond

Bronze Shadows was a fanzine published in the 1960's dedicated to the study of two of the biggest hero pulps ever published, Doc Savage and The Shadow. Created by the late Fred Cook, the 'zine ran from 1965 to 1968 for a total of 15 issues. Like most fanzines of the era, it was homemade, printed on a mimeograph machine and stapled together. It was only one of several such journals centered on Doc Savage and The Shadow.

But it was, apparently, the only one to ever end up in the hands of John D MacDonald, whose early pulp stories filled the pages of these two magazines from 1946 to 1948 when he was just starting out as a writer. This was thanks to the then-editor of both of these pulps, Babette Rosemond, who I have discussed many times in this blog. Here is a paragraph I wrote in 2018 on the subject:

"When writing about the early fiction of John D MacDonald, that period when he was just starting out and learning his craft, enough words cannot be said about the support and guiding influence of pulp editor Babette Rosmond. At that time she was an editor at Street and Smith, managing two of the publisher’s premier titles, Doc Savage and The Shadow magazines, crediting herself as B. Rosmond, probably because of her gender. Like every other editor MacDonald submitted stories to in the that six-month time frame between October 1945 and March 1946 when he couldn’t sell anything to save his life, she was among those who rejected many of his submissions, but her rejections were personal and encouraging. In one rejection letter she wrote, “I, too, am an admirer of atmosphere, but too much atmosphere and too unconvincing a plot make [your story] a weak yarn... However, I am extremely fond of the way you write -- so dry your tears and send me something else very soon." She was an early coach, mentor and -- eventually -- friend who not only helped him in getting a literary agent but counseled him to expand the scope of his stories’ locales.

"To put it in real perspective, of the 57 stories MacDonald had published in his first two years as a writer, 30 of them, or 53%, were purchased by Babette Rosmond."

The second issue of Bronze Shadows was published in December 1965 and one of its contributors made the suggestion to Cook to send a copy to MacDonald. The author responded with the following letter, recalling his time with the magazines, his relationship with Rosmond, and his early pulp career. Below is a transcription of that letter, prefaced and postscripted by Cook:

(John Keasler, whose article appears elsewhere in this issue, suggested that John D. MacDonald might be interested in receiving a copy of Bronze Shadows. Mr. MacDonald, the highly successful author of countless best-selling mystery novels, was sent a copy of #2, and reciprocated by sending along the following article, telling of his early pulp days and his brief association with Doc Savage.

I feel flattered and deeply appreciate the time and effort of such a busy and talented person as Mr. MacDonald, to pause and reminisce with a total stranger.)

JOHN D. MacDONALD vs. DOC SAVAGE
by JOHN D. MacDONALD

I'm glad John Keasler suggested that I receive a copy of Bronze Shadows. I had no idea that a Doc Savage cult was in existence,

You have my permission to use this small and peripheral memory of my association with Doc Savage, though it might give some of the more devoted members of the Savage Coterie an aching desire to take a trip to Sarasota to hit me in the mouth.

I began writing full time when I was sprung after six years in the Army in late 1945. My first attempt at fiction, written while overseas, was sold to Whit Burnett of the old Story Magazine, Consequently my initial efforts - some 800,000 words of unsaleable crud, all in short story form, all completed within a 4 month period, were full of dying blind musicians, incredibly sensitive and oblique dialogue, and everything from imitation Maugham to imitation Tolstoi. I was keeping at least 30 stories in the mails at all times, papered one small room with form rejection slips lost 25 pounds, worked up to 100 hours a week, and acquired a considerable reputation around Utica, New York as a prime case of readjustment problems. No one could understand why I did not put my perfectly good master's degree from Harvard Business to work.

Eight hundred thousand words accomplished in 4 months is in essence a crash training program. It is equivalent to 10 full length novels. No writer of reasonably serious intent can write a single page without learning something of value and improving his control. I sold my second story to Mike Tilden - God rest him - of Popular Publications for Dime Detective in February of 1946. The third one I sold was to one of the Standard Magazines pulps, and the fourth - which was the beginning of a lasting and valued association - was bought by Babette Rosmond of Street and Smith, then editing Doc Savage and The Shadow.

I would estimate that Babs bought forty to fifty short stories of varying lengths from me in 1946, 1947 and a portion of 1948. The first eight or ten were all based on a very personal knowledge of India, Burma, China and Malaysia. She wrote bright, charming letters, but in my mind's eye she was a meaty type in her middle years with a shamelessly evident mustache. From my letters she knew I was a Colonel and she later confessed she had me pictured as middleaged, erect, slight British accent, bulging blue eyes, guardsman's mustache and carrying the inevitable swagger stick.

After those eight or ten based upon the same locale, she wrote to me, saying, “Isn't it about time you took off your pith helmet?”

At about that time I went down to New York to meet the people I'd been dealing with - Mike Tilden, Harry Widmer, Alden Norton. And Babette, who turned out to be a slight, dark, spry gal in her twenties, a very wry and pyrotechnic conversationalist.

Also about that time I was beginning to realize that there were two basic approaches to pulp writing, hence but two kinds of writers. One was the dogged chap who reads and analyzes pulp stories, makes little charts and graphs, develops a clumsy and reasonably direct style and he [...] the stories like a carpenter making different sizes of tables for a furniture mart. The other breed was the group I belonged to, the ones who have no interest in formula or pattern or specific editorial requirements, who want to tell stories, and who, once they accept the minor limitations of the pulp market, take their tongues out of their cheeks and do the best job they can do, and worry later about who might want to buy it. The ratio of work to sales is not as efficient as in the case of the table-makers, because it is a variety of risk-taking, but you can generate considerably more pride in your work, and have more satisfaction in doing it. Working in this manner made the boundary line in those days between pulp and slick very vague. A novelette I thought had its best chance at Cosmopolitan ended up in Dime Detective, A novel I thought might hit Argosy, then a pulp, was diverted to Colliers by my agent, and purchased as a serial.

Insofar as reading pulp magazines, I discovered I could read only those stories by people who were working in the same manner I was. In 1947, Babs Rosmond asked me, very cautiously and tentatively, if I would like to try a Doc Savage. I have the vague memory that Lester Dent was ill at that time. I do remember that I certainly had need of the money. I told her that I would let her know. I got out some of the back copies of the magazine which I had saved because they had contained stories by me. (Some contained two or three by me, the additional ones under the house names Babs and I had devised: Scott O'Hara, Peter Reed, John Farrell.) For the first time I read two Doc Savages all the way through. I did some fretting and some pacing and finally phoned Babs at her office at Street and Smith and said that I could not fault them on the basis of action, or moving the people around, but I just could not bring myself to imitate a prose style so wooden, so clumsy, so labored, so inadvertently hilarious that it was like a parody of the style you might term Early Comic Book. I said that Doc seemed to me to be a truly great comic figure, and I was sorry to let her down, but....

She said she hadn't really believed that I would do it, and that in fact she would have been a little disappointed if I had given it a try, disappointed in me.

I hope the Bronze Cult will understand that I put the knock on the Hero on the basis that any cult has the historical responsibility of assembling the con as well as the pro. I had my chance. I've done some mighty wooden writing under my own name, but at least I never did it on purpose,

(Oboy! How about that? I was introduced to Mr. MacDonald in the pages of Doc Savage and The Shadow along with Thrilling Wonder Stories and Startling Stories. Personally, I have enjoyed his novels more than his short stories because he uses the broader framework to thoroughly develop ideas and characters. I particularly enjoyed The Girl, The Gold Watch And Everything better than most because of the deft development of a most fascinating idea, the complete stoppage of time.

I'm sure we all forgive Mr. MacDonald for this one foolish mistake in his then beginning career.... but then - who are we to argue with success?

Thank you, John, for sharing your start with us. At least for me, you've become a real person in place of just a name on a cover.)

As one might imagine, MacDonald’s comments on the literary quality of the Doc Savage stories elicited several responses, which were printed in issues #4 and 5. JDM again received copies and responded to the objections, which you can read here: Pulp Perspective Plus.

Bronze Shadows issue courtesy of the John D. MacDonald Collection, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

From the Top of the Hill # 32: May 27, 1948

This is the last installment of From the Top of the Hill, John D MacDonald’s 1947-48 Clinton (NY) Courier newspaper column. Unfortunately I am missing the full text of the final few paragraphs, but you’ll get an idea of what he is talking about from the initial sentences.

It had been a difficult 1948 in the MacDonald home. Earlier that winter Dorothy’s mother Rita, who had been diagnosed with cancer a year earlier, suffered a relapse and was forced to leave her home in Poland (NY) and move in with the family. The MacDonalds set up a hospital bed in their living room and Dorothy tended to her care, administering shots every four hours, day and night. A month after this column was published, on June 24, she passed away. (Not in April, as is claimed by Hugh Merrill in The Red Hot Typewriter, an error I regret not correcting for the Stark House reprint.)

With Dorothy in need of a change of scene, and with JDM’s writing income just keeping them afloat financially, and with no savings needed to begin construction on their Piesco lakefront property, the couple decided to move to Mexico. Enticed by Malcom Lowry’s novel Under the Volcano, the couple reasoned that they could live more cheaply there and could also benefit by renting out their Clinton home. So, on October 30, the family began driving south, destination Cuernavaca and the American artist colony there.

Thus ends John D MacDonald’s first career as a newspaper columnists. His second (and last) wouldn’t occur until 1959 when he began writing for a Sarasota monthly titled The Lookout under the pseudonym T Carrington Burns.

Good Piano:

In New York last weekend we dropped in to see a good friend and a very fine gentleman, Gene Rodgers, who, at the moment has his remarkable piano-playing featured in what the New Yorker calls "a triphammer show" at Cafe Society Downtown -- appearing on the bill with the Edmund Hall band and Kay Starr.

Gene advised us that he is opening in New Hartford on the night of the seventh of June. If editorial policy doesn't delete the name of the spot -- you can find him at the New Hartford Grill.

We rashly promised him that we would wave a flag for him, so, on the night of the seventh, if we look around and fail to see you and you and you -- we will request an explanation when we meet again.

Gene is not one of those stylists who zoom to the top, cling there for a year or two, and then fade away. Gene's jazz piano has more depth than the piano of the stylists; he is a musician who has been around for a long time, and will be around for many more years. He will fade if, as, and when public taste for a little subtlety in jazz piano fades. But it is only fair to add that when he switches from Debussy to boogie, some of the numbers are as subtle as a clenched fist. We like variety in our piano. Gene has it.

* * *

Highway Neurotics:

This time we drove to New York. The Parkway from Poughkeepsie down was cleverly designed to bring out the worst aspects of human nature. With dense traffic in one direction restricted to two lanes, and with passing on right or left permitted, the drivers expend every ounce of trickery to keep anyone from passing them. The game is played by using the slower vehicles as blocking backs. Your are in the left lane, going fifty, and someone whom you instinctively hate is slowly passing you on the right. Ahead you see, in your land, a car going about forty. Never, never wait until the guy on your right passes you. Give your crate a burst of speed and cut into the right land ahead of him. Then you can cut your speed to forty-five, thus blocking both lanes and bottling the one who was passing you.

Standard procedure while performing this maneuver is to draw your lips back from your teeth into a fiendish grin which is part snarl. But you do not rest on your laurels. No, you look ahead to see if there is some other opportunity of bottling up the enemy.

Of course the purpose of all this is to so infuriate the man you have bottled up that he will either swing onto the wrong side of the drive or go too fast. Then you can look in your rear vision mirror and watch him trying to talk his way out of a ticket.

* * *

Adios, Amigos:

This is the thirty-second and last edition of From the Top of the Hill.

You have been a fine and understanding audience. Without that chorus, in a minor key, of cheers and jeers, writing this thing would have been very dull indeed.

By now you must have us pretty well pegged.

Yes, we think Clinton is just about the finest spot we have ever seen in which to live and bring up kids. There are a few little things we’d like to see changed, but even the most important of them is minor compared to what we have here.

We also think that Clinton exists as a tiny segment of a world which, even with the utmost charity, must be considered psychoneurotic. On a national scale we are being continually captured by political pygmies, nauseated by radio rhetoric, embittered by B movies, battered by advertising based on fear, mentally impoverished by production-line methods in "higher" education, and possibly condemned through television to what Philip Wylie has called a long future of "swooning in the gloom". Medical science, having gained the upper hand over infectious diseases, is faced with a demoralizing increase in functional disorders.

Our disease of gadgetitis is symptomatic of Veblen's conspicuous consumption. We are racing madly to keep up with the Jones without ever stopping to wonder where the Jones are going. We insist on two strips of chrome where before there was one. Yet the modern industrial plastics empire will never devise a plastic human -- the ideal type of organism if our world is to be a .... [missing three or four paragraphs]...

This is the first time we have been entirely serious in the column and we do it now only because it is the last column.

It's been fun for these thirty-two weeks. Thank you and fare thee well.