Product Description

Although John D. MacDonald published seventy novels and more than five hundred short stories in his lifetime, he is remembered best for his Travis McGee series. He introduced McGee in 1964 with The Deep Blue Goodbye. With Travis McGee, MacDonald changed the pattern of the hardboiled private detectives who preceeded him. McGee has a social conscience, holds thoughtful conversations with his retired economist buddy Meyer, and worries about corporate greed, racism and the Florida ecolgoy in a long series whose brand recognition for the series the author cleverly advanced by inserting a color in every title. Merrill carefully builds a picture of a man who in unexpected ways epitomized the Horatio Alger sagas that comprised his strict father's secular bible. From a financially struggling childhood and a succession of drab nine-to-five occupations, MacDonald settled down to writing for a living (a lifestyle that would have horrified his father). He worked very hard and was rewarded with a more than decent livelihood. But unlike Alger's heroes, MacDonald had a lot of fun doing it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #551721 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

From Library Journal
Floridians and snow birds who aren't already fans of the writing of John D. MacDonald will race to the shelves for his works after reading this fascinating history of the man who has been called a very good writer, not just a good mystery writer. Drawing on extensive research, Merrill (Univ. of West Florida) offers a succinct biography of the man who invented Travis McGee. Readers learn of MacDonald's early works, published as paperbacks at a time when the government was attempting to label all paperbacks as pornography; MacDonald's respect for the untarnished environment of Florida; and his life as an active member of a Sarasota writer's group that met for loud storytelling, serious drinking, and sometimes heated rounds of liar's poker. Through letters to such well-recognized people as Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, and Dan Rowan, readers get a glimpse of how Travis McGee developed and how MacDonald, after putting his character in movies and on television, decided that McGee was bound by the printed page. There is also some discussion of MacDonald's respectful treatment of sex and women in his short stories and novels. This solid appreciation of one of America's favorite popular authors is highly recommended.DJoyce Sparrow, Juvenile Welfare Board Lib., Pinellas Park, FL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The life of John D. MacDonald, author of the perennially popular Travis McGee mysteries, offers a revealing look at what it meant to be a professional writer in the last half of the twentieth century. Neither a literary novelist, supported by universities, nor a best-selling author (at least not for most of his career), MacDonald was a craftsman who wrote for pay, first in the pulps, later as a paperback novelist in the Fawcett Gold Medal stable, and finally in hardcovers, where the later McGees coexisted with such high-concept melodramas as Condominium. Merrill follows MacDonald's life in straightforward, no-nonsense prose (Travis would have approved), moving from the author's early experience in the insurance business, through service in World War II, and on to his seemingly quixotic decision to launch a freelance career. The text is peppered with quotes from MacDonald on the subjects he cared most about: the environment and how to make money from the writing game. For anyone interested in the history of publishing in the paperback era, the life of John D. MacDonald is the ultimate primary source. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews
The life, career, and era of mystery writer MacDonald have been painstakingly researched and presented by journalist Merrill (ESKY: The Early Years at Esquire, 1995).Generous helpings from MacDonald's many letters enliven the narrative and help to offer an up-close look at this prolific author's personal and professional life. A graduate of the Harvard Business School, MacDonald approached writing with an eye toward daily productivity and an aversion for genres that were not selling. His output (at his death in 1986, he had published 70 novels, more than 500 short stories, and 4 books of nonfiction) is a testament to that no-nonsense approach. Merrill notes the unique characteristics of MacDonald's style-among them, the transplanting of the plot of the hard-boiled detective story from the dark streets of the mean city into the bright light of suburbia. Women characters met with more respect from MacDonald than they did from the pens of other favorites like Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming. Perhaps most outstanding, MacDonald's main characters held strong moral convictions: Travis McGee, hero of the well-known 21-book series, worried about racism, corporate greed, and ecology. The details of MacDonald's career serve as a study of a transformational era in publishing. When he started, there were hundreds of pulp magazines. He wrote for them, paid by the word. During WWII, he saw the pulps' huge numbers dwindle. Right in time, though, his career was significantly aided by the advent of the paperback book. He also experienced firsthand (and none too happily) the writing of screenplays and the adaptation of several of his books into films or television productions. For potential and actual MacDonald fans, a worthwhile read. It will interest many others, too, who can learn about a revolutionary period in publishing through the eventful career of John D. MacDonald -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

rather bland and superficial
I am a long time MacDonald fan, and have read most everything he wrote. I once made the pilgrimage to Bahia Mar to see the `Busted Flush' plaque mounted there.

I was delighted when I learned of Hugh Merrill's biography, and curious to know more about MacDonald, the man who created Travis McGee, and wrote so eloquently about the Florida environment.

The Red Hot Typewriter is a disappointment.

It is worth reading if you are a die-hard fan. It includes bits of interesting trivia. What was McGee's first name and why was it changed to Travis? Why the reference to a color in the Magee mystery series?

However, you finish the book feeling as if you don't know John D. MacDonald much better than you did when you began. The author obviously did a lot of research. Unfortunately he presents it in a rather bland and superficial manner. It's as if the author's primary reference source was MacDonald's correspondence, and he didn't go much beyond that. The thoughts and personal anecdotes of friends and family are, for the most part, missing.

What really surprises and disappoints me is that this book has no photographs, none, nada, zero. Pictures would have saved this book for me. I am at a loss to understand why any publisher would produce a biography without including pictures that complement the prose. One of many examples was Hugh Merrill's description of MacDonald's visit to the set where a Travis McGee mystery was being made into a movie. Surely, Warner Brothers publicity took pictures, but you won't find them in this biography.

Phone it in next time...
How do you write a biography of a man and not talk to anyone who knew him, not visit anyplace he lived, and not include any photographs of the man or his family? It's easy: you write brief introductions to letters and passages from the writer's books, and call it a biography. The Red Hot Typewriter isn't red or hot. It is a color-by-numbers biography that is in the end colorless. A massive disappointment if you're a John D. fan, or a fan of good biography.

Informative, but incomplete
As a diehard John D. MacDonald fan, I felt the book left much to be desired. MacDonald's pre-Travis McGee work, from l950-1960 most notably, was barely mentioned, or dismissed as unimportant. The author never took the time to interview the many people who worked with or knew MacDonald, relying only on correspondance. Overall, the book was a disappointment.