Friday, January 30, 2009

John D. MacDonald Biography

Schaffner Press: Upcoming Releases Archives: "BLOODSHOT RAINBOW: The Life and Work of John D. MacDonald
James Walling
Fall '09
Trade Paperback

John D. MacDonald, the hugely prolific bestselling writer of crime novels whose iconic hero Travis McGee became the template for dozens of contemporary mystery writers has until this book largely escaped biographical scrutiny and literary appraisal. With research
ranging from literary archives and correspondence and information gleaned from as yet unpublished military records, author James Walling will retrace Macdonald's footsteps from his years in Burma with the OSS in WWII to his single titles bestsellers, (one of which, THE EXECUTIONERS, was the basis for the movie CAPE FEAR), to the immortal Travis McGee series and the twenty-one books in which the legendary protagonist starred, as well as the final uncompleted ' Black Book' which supposedly featured McGee's demise. In examining not only the mysteries and crime novels, longer works of fiction such as CONDOMINIUM, and even MacDonald's forays into sci-fi (THE GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH AND EVERYTHING) this book will firmly establish MacDonald in the firmament of quintessentially American literary figures, sadly underappreciated due to the commercial genres in which he chose to ply his trade."

Hat tip to The Bunburyist.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the recommendation of this biography. John D. MacDonald is one of my favorite writers, esp. the Travis Series. Bahia Mar, wish I could live there.

Unknown said...

I hope the bio's a good one. The earlier one was okay but could have been a lot better.

Anonymous said...

_The Red Hot Typewriter_ was a mixed bag but good for those like me who, though a fan of MacDonald, knew little about his life. It gave a lot of information that caused me to look for more. Unfortunately, about looking, I realized nearly all of the information was readily available and anyone with a bit of sense could almost have written it themselves. And this book also went for ridiculously high prices. It took a while, but I finally found one for a song. And I'm lucky. I would have been disheartened if I had paid out more than a fair amount for it. I hope this biography is much more competent. John D. MacDonald deserves a biography that matches his craftsmanship.

- Lawrence

Unknown said...

I agree, Lawrence.

Unknown said...

A bit of the book: http://bodyliterature.com/2015/02/19/bloodshot-rainbow-the-spectra-of-john-d-macdonald/