From the Top of the Hill # 15: January 29, 1948

Here's the next installment of John D MacDonald's 1947-1948 Clinton Courier newspaper column, From the Top of the Hill. Here he continues his rant on the low quality of commercial radio in the United States, obviously needing to get in the last word on the subject. His mention of the "race-destruction potentialities of the atomic bomb" is interesting, in that he had just seen his novella "And the World Will Die" published in the November-December issue of Doc Savage Magazine. It's very early JDM science fiction about nuclear proliferation in the early 1950's.

The Battle of the Airwaves

We've got another letter from that Friend of American Radio -- Bill Sykes. Sorry, Bill, but we can't use the letter. You see, in that conversational column we split the conversation between us. You had your say and we had ours.

In the latest letter of yours, you give both sides of a conversation, inserting a mythical Britisher in there to talk to you. Thus you put us on the side of being a Friend of the BBC. We're not. We think it's terrible.

You make the assumption that if we criticize American Radio, we must want government operation of radio. That's pretty fancy logic, Bill. We think it's up to American Radio, as free enterprise, to prove its right to lease the air waves by cleaning its own house.

So let's leave the BBC out of this. Neither of us like it. Okay?

Now to get to the additional points you bring up in your letter -- points which bear on our original argument.

You say that the British, or any foreign listener, is thrilled to hear J. Benny, F. Allen, Lux Radio Theatre. Agreed. So would anyone else be, if they were hearing it for the first time. It's novel, and, being novel, has a certain vitality.

But, on the basis of a decade, the same old formula gets a little tiring. Benny is right up there on top, but is his supremacy challenged by anything fresh, novel? No. The kids that try to steal from Benny's Hooper Rating do it by trying to copy Mr. Benny.

I gather that you want the dissatisfied listeners to gripe to the Federal Communications Division. Not with our complaint, Bill. That system is set up to handle gripes against individual stations and individual programs. We just feel that the broadcasting industry, as a whole, has too condescending an attitude toward the intelligence of the average listener, and could improve quality of programs. You can't send that sort of gripe to your Congressman or to the FCC. That kind of gripe has to be aired in something like the public press. The program quality will improve when listeners boycott the products of the companies who subsidize mediocrity.

You wonder, Bill, why we should complain when, as you say all we have to do is just "twist the dial". Twist it to what? Look back at our previous conversation.

You state that the broadcasting industry had sampled the public and found a strong preference for "Soap Operas" during the daytime hours.

We think that we could sample the third grade and find a strong preference for bubble gum chewing instead of arithmetic.

Not that we feel the public should be bound hand and foot and have "culture" fed to everyone with a tin spoon. No indeed!

But we do feel that the broadcasting industry should shoulder a small portion of our perpetual problem of adult education. Bill, a lot of the brightest men in this country are deeply concerned because the public cannot be awakened to the race-destruction potentialities of the atomic bomb. If, as a nation we are to survive, it must be through a constant, slow, steady increase in awareness and this awareness can only be achieved though education. All of us must become just a little smarter and a little better informed.

Radio can shoulder its share of the burden by raising its sights a trifle and making the average program of every variety a bit more mature.

It is so obvious that nothing will be gained by a perpetual maintenance of the insipid, flavorless and unrealistic antics of the soap operas.

Continue to have soap operas, Bill. But make them better, Make their little two dimensional pasteboard characters face honest and adult problems. This cannot be achieved by the mass-production writing methods used by the soap opera teams, It could be achieved by taking the strong, mature novels of the past and present, and presenting them in soap opera form, adapted for radio.

Take Ross Lockridge's recent novel, Raintree County. A soap opera on that could run two years five days a week.

Incidentally anyone who wants to inject their two bits in this little radio squabble is welcome to do so by writing us a letter.

* * *

See you next week.

Solution to Shades of John D MacDonald

Shades of John D MacDonald

The year 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Deep Blue Good-By and the introduction of Travis McGee. To help celebrate the event, the Washington Post included a John D MacDonald/Travis McGee-centered crossword puzzle in their Sunday magazine supplement, requiring knowledge of all of the colors in the Travis rainbow. To even the most casual reader of McGee, this was not much of a challenge, but it proved to be a lot of fun. If you feel like giving it a try I've created a download link to a PDF that you can print on standard 8½x11 paper. I'll post the solution tomorrow.

Shades of John D MacDonald Puzzle

From the Top of the Hill # 14: January 22, 1948

Here's another installment of John D MacDonald's weekly 1947-48 newspaper column From the Top of the Hill, published in the Clinton Courier.

Battle Royal

Sunday the Town Team carries the fight to Syracuse.

A healthy rivalry is a fine thing. The desire to win makes for good contests. But the payoff is in goals, not in Bandaids and iodine.

Last fall's football warfare between Columbia and Syracuse was a black eye for college football. A good, hard, clean, tough game is a wonderful thing. That game last fall drew penalties for everything except biting the ears off the opposition. It was on the same level of sportsmanship as a barroom brawl where a busted bottle is better than a chair leg.

The last Clinton - Syracuse hockey game had its free-for-all, too.

Seems odd, when you remember that the payoff is on the scoreboard, and it isn't measured in the size of the lump that can be put on somebody's head.

For our money, if the game degenerates into the sort of fracas that the last one did - nobody wins.

A little tangle between players is expected in the fine, wide-open game of hockey. But not a mob scene. Not a deal where a young kid with the flag is trounced for trying to do his job.

* * *

Cicero Makes a Movie

Once upon a time there was a joker named Cicero Bugwilder, who, between writing the comic book sequences for Doc Destruction, managed to get the novel done that his wife had been needling him about for lo these many years.

To Cicero's intense astonishment, the prominent publishing firm of Hardesty and Snood took the book and appropriated enough advertising so that Cicero's book, The Breeze Across the Woodwind, poked a cautious nose up over the bottom line of type in the best seller lists before sinking down into eventual oblivion.

Snood, being almost as smart as Hardesty, manages to put the bite on Magnifico Films to the extent of one hundred and ten thousand bucks for the movie rights to Bugwilder's novel, even getting them to agree to take Bugwilder on the Magnifico payroll to work on the screen treatment of The Breeze Across the Woodwind.

Cicero Bugwilder, wondering what Wilshire Boulevard would do for his asthma, packs a bag, kissed his wife and spent a long time on the Super-Chief watching small dark men play gin-rummy, before climbing down into the arms of the agent recommended by Snood.

Within an hour Bugwilder had been located in the small damp room in the small damp hotel on the small damp street, and had been dragged off to Magnifico and installed in a small, anemic office with a typewriter and three reams of paper.

His secretary was an amphibious looking little creature with a face like a child moose, and, within the hour she announced a Mr. Wenesly Gnud. Mr. Gnud, a solid man with hair, muscles and a cerise sports shirt came breezing in, contemptuously tossed a book onto Bugwilder's desk and said, "Weep for us, pal. Lookit the turkey they gave us to make a picha outa!"

Bugwilder fingered the book, looked carefully at Gnud, and said, "I... I wrote it."

Gnud looked at him with barely disguised contempt and said, "Cheer up. Mabe there's a picha in it. I doubt it. I had to read it last night... Got too much labor stuff. No music. No young love. No nothing. Anyway, we got a month to think it over. The producer is Ben Rustle, great guy. He wants Hillary Grainway as director. Great guyt. Grainway won't be off Spring Angels for maybe a month.

It turned out to be two months before Grainway was ready for The Breeze Across the Woodwind. During those two months Cicero Bugwilder gradually became accustomed to going about without a hat and necktie. He found that he enjoyed the circus excitement of watching pictures made, and he spent many happy hours roaming around the lot.

When Grainway was ready, Magnifico, distressed by the low gross of Grainway's last two pictures, let him go.

The day before the second director was selected, Bugwilder's three month option came up and wasn't renewed. His agent was, at the moment, re-marrying in Mexico, so Cicero Bugwilder, fit and tanned and reasonably affluent, went back to New York by train.

One year later, most of the money was gone, and two days after Hardesty and Snood sent back the manuscript of his second novel with sincere regrets, Cidero Bugwilder and his wife went to the movies.

Cicero was disturbed out of his usual sound sleep by the sound of a familiar name. One of the characters on the screen was being called Henry J. Thyme. Cicero stayed and saw the picture twice and then went to see his lawyer.

"Joe," he said, "They stole the name of a character out of my book and used it in another picture. I want to sue."

Joe sensed a certain nuisance value in the suit which, in contingency, might net his some small change, so he investigated.

Thus it was with considerable regret that he called up Cicero a week later and said, "Old man, I'm afraid we haven't got a leg to stand on. You see, that picture you went to -- the one called Love Dawning -- is the picture they made from your book. They didn't like your title, the plot, or the action -- but they did keep the name of one character. Hey! Bugwilder! Anything the matter?"

For, over the line he had heard a soft muffled thud. For several minutes Joe sat listening to the dense silence, frequently shaking the phone as though that would somehow help.

* * *

Post Script to the Radio Argument

In the Sunday, January 18th issue of the Herald Tribune, B.H. Haggin, in his column "Music on the Radio," points out that by virtue of the principles established by Congress, the people own title to the wave lengths of the air which private persons and commercial companies may use as leasees for a limited period, provided they operate in the public interest, convenience or necessity.

Then he said something which reminded me of the letter we got last week which spoke of the "kindness of sponsors in giving us these wonderful programs with their "modicum of advertising."

We quote Mr. Haggin: "That is something for radio listeners to keep in mind when they are asked to be grateful to the broadcasting industry for what they receive from it. It is the broadcasting industry that owes radio listeners something for the privilege of using their property to make a lot of money. And it can be held to account for its failure, out of sheer greed, to give music lovers what it owes them."

The letter we received last week was obviously the result of indignation that someone, who knows as little about radio as we do, would dare to criticize it.

We not only dare to criticize, but, in absolute fairness we fail to see how any of the data contained in that letter had much bearing on the point. Thus, it is only fair that we request of him an additional letter. Surely there must be more convincing arguments on the side of the broadcasting industry!

* * *

See you next week.

Welcome Back, John MacDonald

Back in 2009 when I first started writing The Trap of Solid Gold, the works of John D MacDonald seemed all but forgotten. Outside of The Executioners (Cape Fear) and the McGee titles none of his standalone novels were still in print. The Travis McGee books that were in print were mass market paperbacks with truly godawful covers featuring huge block lettering which probably did little to sell the things. And outside of a few websites like The Thrilling Detective and Cal Branche’s JDM Homepage, there was little to discover about the author. The year before I started, the late author Ed Gorman had written on his own blog, “From what I can see JDM's career is falling into shambles. Or already has fallen into shambles.”

Then, in early 2013, Random House -- the rights owner of nearly all of MacDonald’s novels thanks to its 1982 acquisition of Fawcett Books -- began a massive reissue campaign, reprinting the Travis McGee series in handsome trade paperback versions, and making most of the standalone titles available for the first time as ebooks. This happy event was celebrated in the pages of The Washington Post’s “Book World” section by Jonathan Yardley. I’ve transcribed his article below.

Yardley was one of the great JDM champions of his day, one of the few literary critics working in a major publication who truly “got” MacDonald. (I write “was,” as Yardley retired from the Post in 2014. Happily he is still with us.) His quote in the right hand column of this blog -- one I’ve had up since I began this project -- reveals his deep understanding of his subject. He wrote several long columns on JDM over the years -- both during his stint with the Post and his prior employment with crosstown rival The Washington Star -- that are well worth hunting down and which may appear here over time. I lived in the DC area most of my life and read Yardley every time he appeared in print. His tastes in literature were spot on and I discovered many great authors over the years -- especially through his “Second Reading” column -- thanks to his writings: John P Marquand, Isabel Colegate, Thornton Wilder, Irwin Shaw and Eudora Welty, to name but a few.

This column appeared in the January 13, 2013 edition of the Post. The headline, “Welcome Back John MacDonald” probably shows just how out of the mainstream JDM was at the time: the headline writer probably thought the middle initial extraneous and an editor didn’t pick up on it either.

Welcome Back John MacDonald

Nearly half a century ago, John Dann MacDonald, a successful writer of paperback mysteries little known within the larger reading public, quietly published "The Deep Blue Good-by," the first of what by MacDonald's death in 1986 had turned into a series of 21 novels featuring the cynical yet idealistic freelance salvage operator Travis McGee. The novel was yet another paperback original to which the literati paid absolutely no attention, but though no one could have guessed at the time, it marked a momentous change in MacDonald's career. Over the years McGee attracted what became a huge and ardently loyal following, and MacDonald not merely began to be published in hardcover but to appear on national bestseller lists.

But that was yesterday, a century ago in this radically altered new world of e-books and tablets. The McGee novels have remained in print in mass-market editions, but most of the other books by this prodigiously prolific writer long ago vanished. Among the non-McGee novels, only "Cape Fear" has remained more or less steadily in print, no doubt because of the deliciously terrifying 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum and the somewhat less successful 1991 remake with Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte. To be sure, some characters in suspense fiction have long outlived their creators - think Lord Peter Wimsey, Sam Spade, Miss Marple and Philip Marlowe - but mostly they just fade away, a fate that surely seemed in store for Travis McGee.

Perhaps that day will come in time, but that time is not now. With the publication of this handsome trade-paperback edition of the first of the McGee novels, Random House - a publishing Goliath not known for sentimentality in literary matters - is bringing not only McGee but almost the entire MacDonald oeuvre back to life with what can only be called a bang. Over the next couple of years, all the McGee novels will appear simultaneously as trade paperbacks and e-books, with "Nightmare in Pink" and "A Purple Place for Dying" arriving next month; a number of MacDonald's other novels - notable among them "Cape Fear" (originally published in 1958 as "The Executioners"), "The Brass Cupcake," "Dead Low Tide" and the 1977 blockbuster bestseller "Condominium" - will be published similarly; and some three dozen of MacDonald's forgotten novels will be issued as e-books.

Yes, Random House probably feels some loyalty to MacDonald. Its subsidiary Ballantine acquired his original publisher, Fawcett Books, in 1982, and presumably MacDonald titles have brought in some welcome income since then. But for a large and, for the most part, resolutely commercial publishing house to take a step such as this on behalf of an author who has been dead for more than a quarter-century is rare indeed. The only comparable example that comes readily to mind is the commitment made by Overlook Press, a self-described "eclectic independent publisher," to bring out a complete and uniform hardcover edition of the works of P.G. Wodehouse, an edition that is one of the glories of contemporary publishing. But Wodehouse is of course a perennial favorite, whereas MacDonald had seemed on the verge of disappearance.

Obviously the existence of e-publishing, with its flexibility and low overhead, is what makes this new MacDonald edition possible, but as one who still reads books only if they're printed on real paper, I welcome the trade-paperback MacDonalds with gratitude and enthusiasm; e-book readers doubtless will be happy to pay $11.99 apiece for the titles. For some years it has been my conviction that, even as MacDonald's reputation has risen considerably over the past few decades, he remains pigeonholed as a genre writer although there is far more to him than that: a fluid, economical prose stylist, a mordantly witty cultural and social critic, a sympathetic but clear-eyed observer of the human comedy - and a comedy, despite all the violence and human meanness that course through his work, is just what he knew it to be.
MacDonald, a purposeful and organized man, set the stage for Travis McGee in the opening pages of "The Deep Blue Good-by" and adhered to it throughout the series. Each of the books is similar (he color-coded the titles to help readers remember which they had and hadn't read) in much the way that each Jeeves and Wooster novel is similar: In the latter it's boy meets girl, girl chases boy, boy escapes by the skin of his teeth, while in the former it's Travis at ease, Travis visited by someone who desperately needs help, Travis takes on the case, Travis rides to the rescue. But beyond that each novel is different, with twists of plot - and usually with one or more twisted characters - that invariably are surprising and often border on the hilarious.

McGee lives aboard the Busted Flush, a "52-foot barge-type houseboat, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale," (3) and works only when he needs the money or can't resist a victim's pleas, the latter being the case in "The Deep Blue Good-by." As a salvage operator, he has a simple if often dangerous system, as described by a friend: "You said that if X has something valuable and Y comes along and takes it away from him, and there is absolutely no way in the world X can ever get it back, then you come along and make a deal with X to get it back, and keep half. Then you just . . . live on that until it starts to run out." Or, as McGee himself puts it: "I like to work on pretty good-sized ones. Expenses are heavy. And then I can take another piece of my retirement. Instead of retiring at sixty, I'm taking it in chunks as I go along."

As that makes plain, McGee is in tongue-in-cheek mode much of the time. He is (in his own words; he narrates all the novels) "that big brown loose-jointed beach bum, that pale-eyed, wire-haired girl- seeker, that slayer of small savage fish, that beach-walker, gin-drinker, quip-maker, peace-seeker, iconoclast, disbeliever, argufier, that knuckly, scar-tissued reject from a structured society," and his list of dislikes fills the fat part of a paragraph: "plastic credit cards, payroll deductions, insurance programs, retirement benefits, savings accounts, Green Stamps, time clocks, newspapers, mortgages, sermons, miracle fabrics, deodorants, check lists, time payments, political parties, lending libraries, television, actresses, junior chambers of commerce, pageants, progress, and manifest destiny."

Variations on that list appear in other McGee novels, but the sense of alienation from the worst of the modern world is a constant. As has been noted elsewhere, he is a knight errant, though somewhere along the line he remarks that his armor is on the rusty side. He isn't exactly a Don Quixote, since he wins more jousts than he loses, but there's more than a little that's quixotic about him, and it adds to his appeal, especially his appeal to the ladies, to whom he's catnip pure and simple, not least because he's "an incurable romantic who thinks the man-woman thing shouldn't be a contest on the rabbit level." (130-1) This is said to Lois Atkinson, a woman who has managed to get herself into a very large batch of trouble thanks to a creature named Junior Allen, a perpetually smiling monster, one of those "men in this world who are compelled to destroy the most fragile and valuable things they can find, the same way rowdy children will ravage a beautiful home." (67)Junior is a classic MacDonald twisted creep, and lives hang in the balance as McGee tries to bring him down.
So what a grand way to begin the new year: with a bit of the "Good Old Stuff," to borrow the title of a collection of early MacDonaldiana, a title soon to be available in an e-book, and with the promise of a great deal more of it in the months to come. Every once in a while, against all the odds, justice rears its lovely head in the world of books, and a publisher does itself proud. Thanks, Random House.

From the Top of the Hill # 13: January 15, 1948

Another edition of John D MacDonald's 1947-48 Clinton Courier newspaper column, From the Top of the Hill. In JDM's prior column he wrote about a radio show he was really enjoying in spite of himself. He prefaced his remarks with many of the reasons he did not like radio in general, characterizing it as a medium full of "oily commercials" and "a series of ragged puns which will curdle your day." This apparently upset one of his readers, who responded with a long, detailed letter full of facts and figures. Here MacDonald shares that letter, along with his responses. 

I think JDM is trying to be funny here, but his constant use of the terms "pal" and "son" when addressing the writer brings to mind a letter Dan Rowan wrote to MacDonald many years later. He, too, had gotten on JDM's wrong side and began his letter thusly: "When you ream someone, I can see that old Army background shining through... you do a fine job of it."


Look What We Found in the Mailbox!

We found a letter objecting to our unpremeditated and unprincipled attack last week on the great institution of American Radio. In fact, the guy sending us the letter also sent it to WIBX to be read over the Rural Editor Speaks Program next Saturday between 8:15 and 8:30 A.M.

We reprint the letter in full, except for a poem, but set the letter up here as conversation, a discussion if you will. Because his viewpoint seems to be that of the radio business, we will call him Broadcaster, and call us Listener.

He starts off with the poem, which mentions a hill-top and for that we thank him dearly, then...

Broadcaster: I am sending this along to my friend the Timekeeper at WIBX who is also the fellow who tries his best to keep radio in the groove and enables us to listen to the medium thru the kindness of some sponsors, who, mind you, in the final analysis only get a modicum of advertising from a maximum of expenditure and I am asking that he reads this over his Rural Editor Speaks column next Saturday between 8:15 and 8:30 A.M.

Listener: Buried in that sentence somewhere, pal, are some pretty broad statements. In the final analysis, you say. Whose analysis? And I wonder about that word "kindness." Maybe the sponsors I have known have been exceptions. When they spend money for advertising, "Kindness" is furthest from their mind. They want sales. Pretty hard-headed cookies, believe me. And bless me, what's a modicum of advertising? My dictionary says it means a little, a small quantity of portion. What have you got to back this up?

Broadcaster: "I have been keeping a very close count on the amount of commercial chatter over WIBX for a typical day, and from my record which I have before me, I find that out of a total of broadcast hours, from 6:00 A.M. till 12:05 A.M., a total of 18 hours and 5 minutes -- there were exactly a total of 3 hours and nine minutes, counting what are called announcements between programs, and those included in quarter, half and full hour programs."

Listener: Look! He's going to beat me to death with statistics? Son, you say only three out of seventeen hours are filled with commercials. To me, that is like having a man beat you on the head with a hammer for three hours and then spend the next fourteen hours trying to tell you it doesn't hurt. I wasn't kicking about the quantity of the commercials. I was kicking about the flavor of same. Unctuous voices quoting phoney statistics about doctor's preferences. Flat little female voices whining nursery rhymes about where to buy what. Commercials that bleat the product name at you nineteen times in sixty seconds. "Love that Soap."

Broadcaster: "In other words, listeners heard 14 hours and 56 minutes of entertainment such as Lux Radio Theatre, My Friend Irma, Screen Guild, and while these programs paid the talent at no less than $61,000 and $28,895 for station time on complete network they only received a total of 3 hours and 9 minutes commercial chatter."

Listener: Three hours and nine minutes of severe test of the gag reflex, pal. And what makes you think the programs you get are so good once you have staggered through the ripe, juicy commercials? Let me refer you to the Saturday Evening Post of January 10th, 1948 in which Paul Schubert has an article titled "A Radio Man Looks at Radio." Paul is one of the people on the inside of radio. He says, and I quote, "I do say, however, that taken by and large, radio in the United States is dull, stereotyped, unimaginative and depressing, a mechanical mental narcotic which fills the hours of the day and night for countless people only for want of anything better. It is tolerated and accepted, but it is not really enjoyed." Last week's column was written and in the Courier office before Mr. Schubert's article hit the stands. I politely suggest you read it.

Broadcaster: "These figures may sound fantastic to you, John D., but when you consider that some of these programs attract in the neighborhood of 40,000,000 people, the cost per listener is much cheaper than the rate your estimable newspaper charges its individual reader for such stuff as you write."

Listener: You can get the Courier 40 years for what a $100 radio costs, son. I am not one to low-rate the American people. Okay, so 40,000,000 of us listen to a program. How does that make it good? Maybe it is the best program available at the time. Or shall we say the least bad. Look at our culture, pal. Books, radio and movies have for twenty years been finding a level of intelligence that is an insult to the capacities of the American People. There are more man hours of leisure today in this country than ever before. Maybe this mechanization and mass production of simple-minded amusements to fill the leisure hours marks the beginning of the decline of Western civilization. May I suggest you read, or re-read, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. There you will see the inevitable end of mass production of narcotic-type amusement which puts no strain on the listener's intelligence. And about the stuff I write, I am a free agent. I am protecting nobody's interests. I am uncensored. I can say what I think. Can radio?

Broadcaster: "Listeners to radio have the ability and responsibility of twisting their dials to find what they want, but when they buy your weekly, these either read it, or use for the garbage collector to pick up the remnants of a meal."

Listener: My goodness! It's far better to line bureau drawers with it. After it's read. But to get back to the radio audience. Sure, anybody can turn a dial. To what? To a very, very few acceptable programs. I recommend, rather than the tinsel splendor of the programs you suggested, Invitation to Learning, CBS is There, Suspense, Chicago Roundtable, and, a comedian as yet unspoiled by radio, Abe Burrows.

Broadcaster: "Perhaps John D might become a listener to the new science in radio: FM... YOU TRY IT. BUY A PILOTUNER for listening musical thrills: your friend John Farquhar will sell you one for $29.75 and then you'll get a real kick out of radio..."

Listener: Hey! You slipped a commercial in there, pal. Unfair! And by the way, I understand that one of the reasons for FM popularity is because sponsors' dollars haven't yet forced mediocrity on it -- and there is a delightful dearth of commercials. Don't tell me that too...!!

* * *

See you next week.

The Long Lavender Lament For Literacy

Walter and Jean Shine’s Bibliography-Biography, the sine qua non of bibliographic research into the works of John D MacDonald, was published in late 1980 by the University of Florida’s Patrons of the Libraries. Costing a mere $9, the initial (and, as it turned out, the only) publication run was 500 copies. Yet even that small number of books didn’t sell out and a year later the University was still sitting on quite a few copies. In November 1981 the University’s UF Today magazine published an article on MacDonald, containing interview quotes, info on the JDM Collection at the University, ordering instructions for the Bibliography-Biography, and bits of boilerplate from the the standard JDM biography. I recently found a copy of the article in my collection -- just the article, not the magazine -- titled "The Long Lavender Lament for Literacy," written by one Janie Gould, and I've transcribed it and present it below. Most of MacDonald’s quotes concern the lack of literacy in the young people of the day, thoughts that would later appear in his final work, Reading for Survival.

JDM seems to have been quite prescient on the wages of a non-reading public. I wonder what he would think of today’s cellphone-addicted culture.

Young people who are apathetic or cynical got that way because they are illiterate, says best-selling novelist John D. MacDonald.

"I think their despair and indifference is the product of ignorance, which in turn is the product of being unable to read,” said MacDonald, of Sarasota, author of more than 600 short stories and 70 novels, including the 1977 hit Condominium and the 19-book Travis McGee mystery series. The University of Florida Libraries, repository of his papers, recently published a bibliography on his life and work.

"Young people can read a contract if they have to sign it,” he said. “They can write a letter to Auntie if she's not too particular, but other than that, forget it.

“The only way you can get an appreciation of morality in its broadest sense is through reading philosophy, history and literature. If they don't read, they come away with the idea that, 'Oh dear, the world is corrupt.”

“They haven't the knowledge through reading that nothing has changed to that extent. If you read enough history you know that we live in a time that's so restful it's almost boring.”

Illiteracy isn't confined to the young, MacDonald said. Only six percent of all Americans read anything more than their daily newspaper and what they have to read at work, he said.

“Reading is an effort, because you have to make little pictures in your head. That causes a little electrical discharge, and if you read a long time you can get tired from the effort of constructing those images. It's easier to sit in front of the television set and let somebody make images for you."

The widespread popularity of romance novels isn't a bad sign, MacDonald said. In fact, he said the literary form was born in the fiction of such magazines as Collier's, The Delineator, and Ladies Home Journal during their pre-television heydays.

"When the market dried up, because television took the advertising money, television replaced those stories with daytime soaps. Reading, for a certain percentage of those people, is much more satisfying, and leads to a better conscience, than staring at the television. I don't care what they read, as long as they read."

MacDonald, who began his career writing for pulp magazines, has written everything from science fiction to sports fiction and western fiction. But no love books and no confessions.

"They were just too sticky."

MacDonald has been sending his papers to the University of Florida Libraries since 1956. Housed in the Rare Books Room and available for use by scholars, his collection includes most of his short stories and all of his novels, many in multiple printings and in languages from Norwegian to Spanish.

"We may have the first all the way through the 28th, 29th and 30th printings," said assistant
library director Sam Gowan.

The MacDonald collection contains manuscripts and a fascinating array of correspondence, including hundreds of letters from readers throughout the world.

From a Sarasota woman came this note: "I love mysteries, especially the Fibber McGee.”

From Newark, N.J.: "Dear Monsignor MacDonald, as I insist that my family call you ..."

A California prison inmate wrote this note: “I have, with your help, escaped from San Quentin and Folsom Prisons about 40 times...I have even flown out of my cell with the girl, the gold watch and everything...My work has taken me to all the islands of the Caribbean and to all the plush resort areas of Mexico...(Your work) has given freedom and adventure and excitement to a man who is entombed and has no life of his own.”

MacDonald recently sent the library typewritten manuscripts of the five false starts of his latest Travis McGee novel, Free Fall in Crimson. The manuscripts, of 28 pages, 57 pages, 10 pages, 44 pages and 39 pages, were written and then discarded before MacDonald settled on the beginning he wanted.

"I thought they might be of some interest to the student of writing, and also they illustrated beautifully my problem of trying to find the right starting place," he said.

MacDonald said he decided to deposit his papers in the UF Libraries to show students what writing is all about.

"They think that writing is traveling, cocktail parties and great broads. But what it is is sitting at a desk until you get shortness of breath and varicose veins and all that."

The bibliography, listing contents of the collection along with biographical information on MacDonald and critical essays, was compiled by Jean and Walter Shine of North Palm Beach, and is available for $9 a copy. Checks should be made payable to the Patrons of the UF Libraries, and sent to 217 Library West, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. Proceeds will help pay for maintenance of the collection and for expansion of collections by other contemporary authors.

A few facts from that bibliography:

• As a 12-year-old, MacDonald spent a year in bed with a combination of scarlet fever and mastoiditis. “I think that long episode of reading and being read to made a considerable difference in my mental climate,” he said. “I entertained myself by exercises of imagination, and still do.”

• At the insistence of his father, a corporation executive, MacDonald entered the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, but dropped out in his sophomore year. After working at a series of menial jobs, he earned a bachelor's degree at Syracuse and a master's at Harvard Business School.

• He is married to the former Dorothy Prentiss, a photographer. Their son Maynard lives in New Zealand with his wife and five children.

• MacDonald's first piece of fiction, a short story called “Interlude in India," was written to his wife in lieu of a letter while he was stationed in India during World War II. Mrs. MacDonald typed it and submitted it to Story Magazine which bought it for $25.

• In addition to his novels and short stories, MacDonald has written two books of nonfiction, including No Deadly Drug, about the murder trial of New Jersey physician Carl Coppolino. It was required reading at Harvard Law School.

• Total worldwide sales of his books are approaching 70 million, or roughly 7,000 copies every day since his first novel appeared in 1950.

The University of Florida eventually stopped offering copies of the Bibliography-Biography for sale and it never saw a second printing. A second edition that was planned by the Shines -- one that I helped do research for -- also never saw the light of day. Years later I would occasionally see copies for sale on eBay for three figures, but those sightings were few and far between. Happily, the University has scanned a copy and it is available for viewing on the web to anyone with a connection.

From the Top of the Hill # 12: January 8, 1948

Another installment of John D MacDonald’s early Clinton (NY) Courier newspaper column From the Top of the Hill. Here he reacts to the then-recent Senate testimony of President Harry Truman’s personal physician, who was being investigated for having a discretionary brokerage account that traded in commodities. Then he writes about a radio show he had become “addicted to,” Youth Opportunity Program, a Major Bowes-like talent show hosted by bandleader Horace Heidt, and which ran from December 1947 to August 1949. Finally he presents a MacDonald family problem that probably occurred all too often given his chosen line of work.


Why All the Wrist-Slapping?

We are completely baffled by the governmental fingers wagged in a threatening fashion at the so-called "speculators" in grain and such.

It would be a criminal sort of activity if any member of the government speculated on the basis of inside information he obtained by reason of his government job. We doubt if the president's physician had any pipeline to the inside information. Thus we assume that the man was talking his chances.

All the recent fuss seems to ignore two very basic factors:

A. This so-called "speculation" is a basic and indispensable part of our economic system. It is the means by which price levels are ascertained. Stock prices are found by a lot of people buying and a lot of people selling, all of them hoping to make a dollar.

B. Also, the greater the risk, the greater the profit. The government apparently feels that speculation is some sort of synonym for making money. It is easier to lose than to make money.

President Truman apparently feels disturbed because this "speculation" is artificially raising the price levels to the ultimate consumers. Speculation can make periodic artificial increases or reductions in price levels, but ultimately supply and demand will determine the base price.

It seems almost stupid that in complaining about a basic device in our economic system, people should shout, "Nasty!" Nasty!" about the people who participate, in spite of the fact that they have a perfect legal right and, for our money, moral right to do so.

We are forced to assume that the government has placed itself in the position of saying, "All this speculation is a Bad Thing, and anybody who indulges is a Bad Person, but it does perform some kind of a function we think, and leave us alone long enough and maybe we'll find something which will do just as well."

Why shouldn't a man who works for the government use his own funds as he sees fit? Our economic system is based, for its controls and checks, on a lot of people trying to make a quick buck.

Now they are making it look as though the president's physician was going around shutting children's fingers in car doors.

* * *

For Your Listening Pleasure...

Usually we avoid a radio dial with the same care that an old line Democrat avoids Henry Wallace.

It's not that we are in any way proud of not being addicted to the narcotic which is merchandised over the air. We'd like to listen.

We do listen to some music now and again, but the risk is too great. You can be hunting for a program of music and, if you aren't quick enough, you can get a jolt of oily commercial, or a series of ragged puns which will curdle your day.

As a rule, we grasp the radio dial firmly and turn it sharply to the left. That starts the record turntable.

"Eminent physicians recommend..." Sixty-three percent of all housewives prefer..." You, too, can be free from..."

But five weeks ago last Sunday night at ten thirty the radio was on and we were too weary to walk over and turn it off. We heard a variation of the old "amateur night" stuff, all tied up into a brand new package.

Horace Heidt, travelling for P. Morris, hits a new city each week and carries with him the winner to the next city to compete with local talent.

The winner the first week, Dick Cantino, accordionist, has successfully defended himself against all comers for five weeks.

So now it is like taking drugs. Each Sunday night we have to find out if this Cantino character has run into someone better. We'd like to quit listening. We think of the carefree Sundays when the program didn't exist.

Now we're trapped. The advertising on the program is as objectionable as anybody's. The whole setup is as fraudulently commercial as can be imagined. And yet there is the Cantino kid from a Fresno butcher shop, knocking them over each week with an instrument we never cared for anyway. We keep asking ourselves why we should care one way of the other. But it seems that we do.

So we put this in here in hopes of trapping others. "You, too, can be an addict! Radio is one of the simplest, most effective drugs ever devised! Fifty-one percent of all practicing psychiatrists say: (New voice, heavy and impressive) 'In my long experience I have never found a more effective narcotic than modern American radio'"

* * *

Winter Scene

Setting: Warm house. Outside the sunshine is brilliant on the deep snow. Inside children run gaily back and forth making sound like herd of buffalo. Also heard -- feeble clicking of typewriter.

Male Voice: (Plaintively) Why don't those kids play outside?

Female Voice: (Forced cheerfulness) It's a lovely day, children. Why don't you play outside for a while?

Little Voices: (Yammering) Nah! We like it in here. We dowanna go out!

Male Voice: Don't ask 'em. Tell 'em!

Female Voice: Get your things, children. You're going out.

(Sound of bitter complaint and grumbling, then numerous grunting noises as feet are poked into leggings, overshoes are stomped on.)

Little Voices: Where's my other mitten? I can't find my hat. I can't get this zipper undone. Who took my other ski-pole? You seen my overshoes?

Female Voice: Look on the radiator in the hall. Have you looked in the front hall closet? How about the cellar stairs?

(Period of silence while noise of tramping buffalo fills the house and typewriter makes two small clicking noise.)

Little Voices: We dowanna go out. Do we hafta go out, huh? We dowanna.

Male Voice: Are they all dressed for the outdoors?

Female Voice: Yes, dear.

(Sound of heavy and determined male footsteps. Small bleating noise from children. Outside door opens. Swishing noises. Outside door slams shut. In the distance there is a faint sound like that which would be made by children head-down in thick snow. More heavy male footsteps. The house is silent. The typewriter begins, hesitantly at first, then confidently, almost joyously.)

* * *

See you next week.

JDM and GHWB

The recent passing of President George H.W. Bush brought to mind a long-ago magazine article I once read in The Washingtonian magazine. It was the April 1982 issue and the piece -- written by Jack Germond and Jules Witcover -- was titled “Why Do Conservatives Hate Bush?” The authors postulated that although Bush was a loyal VP to President Ronald Reagan, he was viewed as “Nelson Rockefeller in sheep’s clothing” by something they called “The New Right,” a nebulous entity that included long-forgotten “masterminds” such as Terry Dolan and Richard Viguerie. Alongside the article was an info box titled “Facts and Figures: The Inside Stuff,” which listed birthdate, religion and a list of favorites. Here it is:

I was working with JDM Bibliographer Walter Shine at the time, helping him chase down some loose ends for a second edition of his Bibliography - Biography (which, sadly, was never published) and I sent a copy of the article to him as material for his column in the JDM Bibliophile. He wrote back a thank you, along with some fiery adjectives about the article's subject, proving that Bush, moderate Republican though he may have been, had no friends on the left either. (People who think things are overly partisan now have very short memories.)

Anyway, Bush was a good man, a war hero, a citizen who dedicated his life to the service of his country. And, I might add, a man with impeccable literary tastes.

"The Organized Following of John D MacDonald"

Here’s a transcription of a short piece that appeared in the August 27, 1971 issue of Publisher’s Weekly, written by Alice K Turner, titled "The Organized Following of John D MacDonald". It mostly covers background on the then-six year old JDM Bibliophile, the journal/fanzine dedicated to the work of John D MacDonald, and contains some original quotes from the author. What’s more fascinating -- to me, at least -- is the final paragraph, which reveals the genesis of Travis McGee’s appearance in hardcover. It’s a business arrangement I was unaware of. A special thanks to author Dan Pollock for sharing his copy of this article with me.

John D. MacDonald, creator of the Travis McGee series and many another novel, made a rare trip to New York the other day from his native Florida. Publisher’s Weekly asked him how it felt to be the only living icon (as far as we know) of an organized literary fan club. It felt fine, he reported.

“It's run by this nice couple out in California, Len and June Moffat. The whole thing started in the mid-60s with a mimeographed bibliography of my work which they sent round to 50 or so people, including me. Tony Boucher mentioned it in his New York Times column, which won a lot of interest. It slowly grew into a regular 'fanzine,' which now goes to about 800 people. No subscriptions-it comes out too irregularly-but they're up to number 18."

Mr. MacDonald is himself a regular contributor to the JDM Bibliophile, as it is called. He answers letters, criticizes critiques, satirizes satires, answers questions. “I like to do it,” he explains, “and besides, it would be gross not to. As a matter of fact, it helps with the mail. People who would otherwise be bothering me write to the magazine instead. So it turns out to be a service.

“Funny thing is, I've never met the Moffats. Last time I was out in California I kept meaning to call them. Something always came up and I was always pooped. So I've never even talked to them on the phone. In a funny way, I guess I wanted to keep it that way. They have, I think, an exalted image of me which I don't want to disgrace."

People who don't write to the Bibliophile sometimes write to Travis McGee himself at Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, where, as all true believers know, The Busted Flush is ordinarily moored. McGee mail is forwarded to MacDonald. Once in a while, there is a surprise.

“One was a letter from a Holiday Inn in South Carolina which began, 'Dear Mr. McGee.' And it turned out that some guy had signed in as McGee -- address and all -- and cut out the next day. He soaked them $16 for his room, plus $23 for phone bills. It gave me the strangest feeling—as if he were real for a second or two."

Mr. MacDonald has a chuckle McGee-like in richness. “About three years ago, I had published two or three stories in Playboy, and to my astonishment around Christmastime I got a bonus check for $150 in the mail. It made me feel very strange, as though I were a Playboy bunny and someone had just pinched me on the tail, then handed me a tip. I didn't know what to do with the thing. I couldn't send it back and I didn't want to keep it. So I wrote to Len and June, asking if they could think of anything to do with $150, and they wrote back and said, 'Gee, we've been saving to get our own Gestetner, so we won't have to print up the magazine on a borrowed one and we could certainly use the money for that.' So I sent it off to them--the right move for the right check."

For fans, the address is:
The JDM Bibliophile
c/o Len and June Moffat
Box 4456
Downey, Calif. 90241

Incidentally, The Turquoise Lament, arriving October 30 from Lippincott, will be the first McGee ever to make a hardcover debut. Under John D. MacDonald's usual (but unusual) contract, Lippincott picks up the McGees after Fawcett has first issued them and pays Mr. MacDonald only $1 royalty on the first 5000 sold, after which standard rates resume. The understanding with Lippincott, according to Mr. MacDonald, was that as a reward for this financially somewhat thankless task, Lippincott would one day get an original McGee. This is it. Fawcett gets it next summer to publish as a Gold Medal book, and from now on new McGees will appear in Gold Medal first, as before.

ALICE K. TURNER