Saturday, June 11: Mississippi Mud
FORT LAUDERDALE VICE
by John M. Floyd
A little over a year ago I did a column at this blog on the fiction of John D. MacDonald, and that would normally be enough to make me steer clear of writing about him and Travis McGee for a while. After all, how much can you say about one mystery author, or his series protagonist? But I recently re-read one of the McGee books, and was reminded of how good they were—and how interesting a hero he is.
It’s probably because he’s so different. According to Travis McGee’s official fansite, he is—unlike most professional detectives from crime fiction—“neither a police officer nor a licensed private investigator; instead, he is a self-described ‘salvage consultant’ who recovers others’ property for a fee.” H. R. F. Keating once noted that McGee started out as a bad guy but evolved into a good guy, an “avenging private eye with a somewhat sloppy center.” (The recovered property mentioned in the first quote was often recovered by stealing it from those who had stolen it in the first place.)
Anyhow, long story short, I decided to take another dive off The Busted Flush and paddle around at least a bit more in that delightful series of novels. The way I’ve done it this time is to ask you to match MacDonald’s famous “colors” with the rest of his titles. (Example: Number 1 goes with letter M, to create A Purple Place for Dying.)
Give it a try:
1. purple
2. green
3. brown
4. blue
5. cinnamon
6. scarlet
7. lemon
8. gray
9. pink
10. indigo
11. silver
12. copper
13. turquoise
14. red
15. orange
16. crimson
17. lavender
18. gold
19. tan
20. yellow
21. amberA. free fall in
B. for guilt
C. darker than
D. girl in the wrapper
E. for the shroud
F. lonely rain
G. goodby
H. long look
I. one fearful eye
J. lament
K. nightmare in
L. deadly shade of
M. place for dying
N. empty sea
O. ruse
P. skin
Q. sandy silence
R. ripper
S. quick fox
T. dreadful sky
U. dress her in
If your matchmaking skills didn’t work because you aren’t familiar with these books, I encourage you to read one of them. I think you’ll be glad you did. But if you got a perfect (or even a pretty good) score, you probably already know all about Travis and Meyer and 1960s Florida and the Bahia Mar Marina—and how much fun those adventures can be.
Either way, here are the answers:
1M—A Purple Place for Dying
2R—The Green Ripper
3D—The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper
4G—The Deep Blue Goodby
5P—Cinnamon Skin
6O—The Scarlet Ruse
7T—The Dreadful Lemon Sky
8B—Pale Gray for Guilt
9K—Nightmare in Pink
10U—Dress Her in Indigo
11F—The Lonely Silver Rain
12N—The Empty Copper Sea
13J—The Turquoise Lament
14S—The Quick Red Fox
15E—Bright Orange for the Shroud
16A—Free Fall in Crimson
17H—The Long Lavender Look
18L—A Deadly Shade of Gold
19Q—A Tan and Sandy Silence
20I—One Fearful Yellow Eye
21C—Darker Than Amber
Parting questions: Did any of you like these books? If so, was it because of McGee? The setting? The plots? All of the above?
By the way, I plan to leave Mr. MacDonald and his colorful characters alone from now on—at least as column fodder. But I’ll probably continue to re-read the novels.
“To diggers a thousand years from now . . . the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen.” —Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
I think Vonnegut was right, Jim. They’re just off-beat enough to appeal to many different kinds of readers.
I very much liked Travis McGee. Rumor has it John D. MacDonald quit writing because he died, but I suspect he gave up because the reality of Florida’s batshit madness outstrips the best of us.
The Travis McGee novels are great, no question, among the finest in the genre, but to be honest—and I am probably the exception here—I don’t much care for this color-in-the-title thing. According to one source: “All the titles in the 21-volume series include a color, a mnemonic device which was suggested by his publisher so that when harried travelers looked to buy a book they could at once see those MacDonald titles they had not read.” But surely readers don’t actually need such a device to remember which novels they have read? One should be able to remember them by their titles, regardless of whether they contain a color or not, if the stories were memorable and engaging enough—which they undoubtedly are. This strikes me as a bit childish and overly gimmicky, too cutesy. But again, the novels themselves are fantastic, and I love ’em!
Josh, I agree that the McGee titles are gimmicky. That device sure gets used a lot, though. Look at Evanovich’s numbers, Grafton’s alphabet, Ludlum’s three-word titles, Sandford’s “prey” series. Like you, I don’t think that kind of thing is at all necessary — but some publishers apparently do.
Leigh, you’re probably right. Remember the old saying that at one point the nation tipped up a little in the middle, and all the nuts rolled to both coasts? Maybe that could be extended, and the nuts on the East Coast rolled down to collect in Florida.
. . . and all the nuts rolled to both coasts . . .
Says the guy from Mississippi, where naked guys fall through ceilings and other naked guys hunt ghosts in cemeteries with cameras.
At least we wear clothes here in California. (You could be right about Florida, though.)
I bet both those guys migrated here from L.A.
Yep. They felt more at home in Mississippi.
John: Yes, you are right. And I dislike Sue Grafton’s alphabet titles, too. This kind of thing may appear original and fun at the beginning, but it soon loses its novelty, I think . . . like, by the third book. Can’t judge the novels, though, because I haven’t read them.
John Grisham’s titles always beginning with the word “the” is the same kind of deal (although this doesn’t seem as silly and in-your-face as the other examples).
There’s one good thing, I suppose, about Grisham’s simple and bland titles: they’re usually appropriate to (or at least identify) the subject he’s writing about. You know the books must be about law and the legal system before even picking them up. The same seems to be true of Louis L’Amour, Clive Cussler, and several others who write novels based on unique areas or topics.
Authors’ (and publishers’?) choices of titles is always a fun discussion.
I’ve had a thing for stories/novels using musical titles for quite some time!