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Me and Travis McGee
Over on Paul Guyot's blog, he does his latest Cinco de Author with Lee Child, creator of the Jack Reacher series. One of the exchanges really jumped out at me:
PG: You and I both credit the Travis McGee novels as inspiring us early on. How big or important an influence was John D. MacDonald on your writing, and do you ever go back and read the McGee novels today?
LC: How big an influence was he? Can you spell H-U-G-E? Completely seminal, both in style and feel, but also in terms of structure. I re-read them occasionally. The gender relationships are toe-curlingly dated now, but other than that they're still great. Especially the beginnings. Generally nothing fantastic happens on page one but you're hooked immediately, stealthily, without notice or warning. Like heroin, really.
It warms my heart every time I see people discussing John D. MacDonald and Travis McGee. Those books were so important to me in my development as a mystery reader and critic. I'm glad that they haven't been forgotten. (It's so sad when a great writer fades into the mists of time.)
Travis McGee always seemed to be one of the realest protagonists from a mystery series. Not because there's actually anyone like him, but because MacDonald knew him so well and wrote about him so powerfully, that he came to life on the page in a way that most characters don't.
McGee might not have been realistic (just as Jack Reacher isn't realistic), but he was still real. You knew his thoughts and opinions, his dreams and desires; knew how much he cared for his friends, knew to what lengths he'd go to right a wrong. (I'll never forget how shocked I was when Travis learned he was going to be a father. I cried along with him.)
You got the feeling that if only you could make your way over to Slip F18 in the Bahia Mar Marina in Ft. Lauderdale, Travis would still be there, sitting on the deck of the Busted Flush, sipping a Plymouth gin, maybe getting a back-rub from a pretty girl, maybe playing cribbage with a hairy guy named Meyer.
Reading about McGee, you cared about him, you felt for him, and there were times when he'd break your heart. He was the kind of guy you wanted to meet, to get to know, and maybe count as a friend.
It's a rare writer who can make their characters live like that, and MacDonald was one of the best. I still miss him and McGee.
May 16, 2005 in Books | Permalink
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Comments
Had to click through to Ink Slinger to catch the rest of the LC interview, and am reeling after reading your comment therein.
Clapton and Page both suck? Dude, are you TRYING to make me root for Guyot in the Novel-Off? What are you, like, into Robert Fripp?
Say it ain't so...
Posted by: Cornelia Read | May 16, 2005 12:09 PM
Thanks for the great essay on Travis McGee. I had to direct my blog readers to it. McGee is my all time favorite. I'm not sure I can explain why, but perhaps you've done so. Surely John D. MacDonald isn't fading away? Recently I reread one of the early McGees which seemed as fine as ever to me, but perhaps not frantic enough for today's taste.
Posted by: Eric Mayer | May 16, 2005 12:22 PM
I'm hopeful that MacDonald will never fade away. I think his work has a timeless quality that will always appeal to readers, although it does reflect certain attitudes, particularly with regard to gender relations, that would probably not go over well with the contemporary audience.
As for Clapton and Page... it's possible that I was just being deliberately provocative. :) Although I've never been a fan of the blue-eyed blues.
Posted by: David J. Montgomery | May 16, 2005 12:41 PM
I've been a McGee fan ever since the first book in the series appeared, and of course I started reading JDM even before that. When I was a grad student (long, long ago), I won second place in a student book-collecting contest for my collection of JDM paperback originals. I'm glad to see people are still reading and talking about him. In my darker moments, I start thinking he's been pretty much forgotten already.
Posted by: Bill Crider | May 16, 2005 02:08 PM
I know how you feel, Bill. I'm fearful that Ross Thomas will soon be forgotten, and that thought makes me profoundly sad.
Posted by: David J. Montgomery | May 16, 2005 02:13 PM
Last summer I read all the McGees, in order. Great fun. Reading them all at once makes the treatment of women problem fade, in a way. I took a class once where the teacher talked about detail-realistic versus emotionally realistic fiction. The women in the Travis McGee books are creatures who never graced this planet we call Earth, but most people have felt the emotions MacDonald writes about. Also, it is very much a period thing. I can see the paper: "Kiss the Captain and you die: Travis McKeen and James T. Kirk and the Idealized Female in 60s Pop Culture."
Posted by: Mary Root | May 16, 2005 02:27 PM
While I dig the McGee books, I think it's a shame that almost none of MacDonald's stand-alone crime novels (ONE MONDAY WE KILLED THEM ALL, SOFT TOUCH, APRIL EVIL, DEAD LOW TIDE) are in print. Sounds like a case for Hard Case. Or, even better, someone should reprint three at a time in trade paper, like they did with the Mike Hammer novels a few years back.
Posted by: Duane | May 16, 2005 03:10 PM
I'm a big McGee fan, too. In fact, my upcoming PI novel THE MAN WITH THE IRON ON BADGE, coming out in November, is all about a guy who wants to *be* Travis McGee.
That said, I think the books are more a lot more dated that Lee Child lets on, and not just in the relationships between the sexes. But the tight plotting and lean prose are ageless (well, except for those long, undulgent "speeches" about the environment and development and what-not that bogged down some of later books in the series).
Posted by: Lee Goldberg | May 16, 2005 03:19 PM
The ridiculous female characters were enough to kill the whole deal for me when I tried to revisit the series a few years ago. Can't do it. I can adjust my expectations to accomodate an era's mores, but I can't adjust them to accomodate hamhanded writing and adolescent lack of insight.
I have a similar problem with the sexual relationships in Larry Niven's work. I spend too much time wishing a talented writer would grow up so I could read a complete, satisfying book.
As for Fripp, the new King Crimson CD is excellent.
Posted by: Keith | May 16, 2005 03:21 PM
I too grew up reading the McGee books, which has certainly left its mark on both me and my writing. I even give him a mention in my next book, even though since it comes through a female character, it's a bit of a backhanded compliment :-) .
Posted by: JDRhoades | May 16, 2005 03:49 PM
Loved your essay about John D. McDonald and Travis McGee. I loved the series, and while I've heard comments elsewhere that McDonald's treatment of women, examined under today's lens, would be considered sexist, I have only fond memories of days spent with one his mysteries. So in a way I'm loath to revisit the series, but...your essay has inspired me to do just that.
Posted by: Rochelle | May 17, 2005 11:36 AM
The whole idea that the books suffer because they were sexist or the women charcaters were ridiculous is a joke, imho.
Does one read ROOTS now and go, "Alex Haley was so racist!"
At the time the books were written they were extremely contemporary and the relationships right on the nose. If you read the entire series you see the gender relationships evolve right along with the times. The women of The Lonely Silver Rain are vastly different than the females in The Quick Red Fox.
Posted by: Guyot | May 17, 2005 01:59 PM
Thanks for the great essay on Travis Mcgee.
I discovered one of the books " the Girl in the plain brown wrapper" on my Dad's bookshelf and loved the writing so much I searched out the rest of the series.
I would agree there are some definite weak books in the series ( Nightmare in Pink was mostly...a nightmare IMHO) But most of the books, and especially the way John D. allowed Travis to age over the series made them stand out for me.
Thanks Paul, for makeing a great point that you have to read fiction with an understanding for the time in which the books were being written. Good Crime fiction especially.
Posted by: Kevin | May 17, 2005 04:20 PM
The thing about McGee's women...I guess I look at it like, well, that's just Travis talking. A guy like that, back then, how's he going to talk?
Posted by: Eric Mayer | May 17, 2005 04:59 PM
The relationships may have been contemporary, insofar as they reflected a certain aspect of popular culture, but the female characters (at least those I encountered in whichever couple of books I tried again a few years ago) weren't recognizable to me as human beings. It's not a time period issue--it's I don't believe those people ever existed.
Been wrong before, will be wrong again. And maybe I picked examples from earlier in the series. What's a good one to read for a female character that's not just a male fantasy?
Posted by: Keith | May 17, 2005 10:07 PM