Book Description

Reviews (6)

good sketch of macdonald, but he deserves more than a sketch
As a longtime fan of the Travis McGee novels, I was eager to learn more about the writer who created him.

"The Red Hot Typewriter" gives a brief glimpse of the man but doesn't go into enough detail. There's not a very strong sense of chronology, particularly with the McGee series, and the details that are there are cut short just when they were getting interesting.

"Red Hot" contains just enough odd facts to make it worthwhile -- MacDonald's strange battle of wills with American Express, the origin of Travis as Dallas McGee (changed shortly after the Kennedy assassination), a strange sad feud between John D. and a close friend, and the conception of Meyer -- but a better, richer and more complete bio of MacDonald should (hopefully) appear soon.

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.

Educational and entertaining.
Having grown up reading the Travis McGee series and more recently reading the rest of the vast library of John D. MacDonald, I found this book personalized the late pulp master for me, as I hoped and expected. You get a feel for the intellect of both John D. and his wife; the influence of his romance and relationship with his wife comes through in his life's work. My only complaint about the book is that I wanted more...but, then again, that is the feeling that I have as I re-read all of John D. MacDonald's books.

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. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Fascinating look at "advice sharing" between famous friends
Even the famous need a sounding board..a friend who will listen and sometimes advise. Rowan, the popular straight-man of the 60's hit TV show "Rowan & Martin's Laugh In"finds his attentive "ear" via correspondence with novelist John D. Macdonald. Their letters, gathered by MacDonald, aptly describe Rowan's fight with fame, his partner, and success. True Travis McGee followers will want this volume in their collection simply because, on occassion, MacDonald quotes Meyer--McGee's intellectual friend--when offering advice and wisdom to Rowan. A hard to find book, but one worth looking for. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Interesting and easily readable, but quite dated now.
I am rather surprised to be the first person to review this book, since Donald Creighton's biography of John A. Macdonald is considered a classic in Canadian history.The book was first published in two parts, in 1952and 1955, and both parts won the Governor General's award for these twoyears.At that time its topic was relatively new, since there had beenonly a few detailed biographies on Macdonald written in the half centurybefore Creighton's (such as the one written by sir Joseph Pope, Macdonald'sliterary executor, who had at that time control over Macdonald's papers --which were donated to the Public Archives of Canada in 1917) and even fewerbooks on the great politician have been written since Creighton's.Butwith all this new wealth of information now available to historians,Creighton was able to shed new light upon this famous Canadianstatesman.

But Creighton's book is more than a conventional biography. It tries to make history come to life.Indeed, Creighton wrote Macdonald'sbiography in the shape of a novel, which means that the only quotations inthe book are either from newspaper articles or from letters written by, to,or about John A. Macdonald.No secondary work is quoted in the entirebook, even though it appears that Creighton read extensively on the subjectbefore writing his book.The book includes endnotes, but it does not readlike a conventional history book.The novel-like approach used byCreighton makes the book a pleasure to read.Creighton succeeds in makingCanadian history interesting.

However, Creighton's book is alsorepresentative of its time, and representative of Creighton's personalbeliefs.Creighton, who died in 1979, was known as a Canadian nationalistwith strong anti-American tendencies.His choice of John A. Macdonald as asubject rather than, for example, William Lyon MacKenzie King (anotherfamous Canadian Prime Minister), might be explained by the fact thatMacdonald was himself a nationalist.Macdonald once declared: "ABritish subject I was born, a British subject I will die," and hisfamous National Policy, which favoured the development of the Canadian Westand which introduced high tariffs on American goods, is still considered asone of the most nationalistic policies ever applied in Canada.Creighton,therefore, chose Macdonald as topic because of the similarities betweentheir political positions.Therefore, Creighton is sympathetic toMacdonald throughout the book. Creighton's position regardingFrench-Canadian nationalism and Quebec separatism (he saw them asdisruptive elements that weakened his beloved Canada against the UnitedStates) also had an impact on how the book was written, which isparticularly evident when he writes about the two Metis rebellions in arather unsympathetic way.

Also, the novel-like type of writing does havea disadvantage: it only allows the reader to know a single view onMacdonald.Historical books written in the conventional manner ofteninclude different positions on a single event, but in the case ofCreighton's book, the narrative strength of the novel simply cannot includemore than one version, since the sweeping narrative would otherwise bebroken up by different views, and the book could consequently lose all ofits appeal.

In summary, because the book has a clear bias in favour ofMacdonald, and because it has not aged well (this style of writing is notused anymore by historians, because of the limitations it creates, thesacrifice of impartiality in favour of a continuous narrative form), Ibelieve it does not deserve a full mark.On the other side, Creighton'sbook is interesting to read as an example of the historical research methodof its time.And I must also admire Creighton's skill for making historycome to life.We must thank him for his use of a writing style that makesCanadian history accessible to the larger public.And the caricatures bythe Canadian cartoonist Bengough, that are present throughout the book, arean extra treat. ... Read more