Ross Macdonald

This article is about the author. For the Canadian sailor, seeRoss MacDonald (sailor).For the musician, seeRoss MacDonald (musician).For Australian politician, seeRoss McDonald.

Not to be confused withJohn D. MacDonald.

Ross Macdonald
Born	Kenneth Millar (1915-12-13)December 13, 1915 Los Gatos, California,U.S.
Died	July 11, 1983(1983-07-11)(aged 67) Santa Barbara, California,U.S.
Pen name	John Macdonald, John Ross Macdonald, Ross Macdonald
Occupation	Novelist
Alma mater	University of Western Ontario,University of Michigan
Genre	Crime fiction
Spouse	Margaret Millar ​ (m.1938)​
Children	1

Ross Macdonaldwas the main pseudonym used by the American-Canadian writer ofcrime fictionKenneth Millar(/ˈmɪlər/;December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983). He is best known for his series ofhardboilednovels set inSouthern Californiaand featuring private detectiveLew Archer.Since the 1970s, Macdonald's works (particularly the Archer novels) have received attention in academic circlesfor their psychological depth,sense of place,use of language,sophisticated imageryand integration ofphilosophyintogenre fiction.Brought up in the province ofOntario, Canada,Macdonald eventually settled in the state ofCalifornia,where he died in 1983.

TheWall Street Journalwrote that:

"... it is the sheer beauty of Macdonald’s laconic style—with its seductive rhythms and elegant plainness—that holds us spellbound. 'Hard-boiled,' 'noir,' 'mystery,' it doesn’t matter what you call it. Macdonald, with insolent grace, blows past the barrier constructed byDorothy Sayersbetween 'the literature of escape' and 'the literature of expression.' These novels, triumphs of his literary alchemy, dare to be both. "

Life

Millar was born inLos Gatos, California,and raised in his Canadian parents' nativeKitchener, Ontario.Millarwas a Scots spelling of the surnameMiller,and the author pronounced his nameMillerrather thanMillar.When his father abandoned the family unexpectedly when Millar was four years old, he and his mother lived with various relatives, and he had moved several times by his 16th year. Back in Canada as a young adult, he returned to Kitchener, where he studied, and subsequently graduated from the University of Western Ontario with an Honors degree in History and English. He found work as a high school teacher.Some years later, he attended the University of Michigan and received a PhD in 1952. He marriedMargaret Sturmin 1938, though they'd known each other earlier in high school. They had a daughter in 1939, Linda, who died in 1970.The family moved from Kitchener toSanta Barbarain 1946.

Millar began his career writing stories forpulp magazinesand used his real name for his first four novels. Of these he completed the first,The Dark Tunnel,in 1944. After serving at sea as a naval communications officer from 1944 to 1946, Millar returned to Michigan, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree in literature.For his doctorate, Millar studied under poetW. H. Auden,who (unusually for a prominent literary intellectual of the era) held mystery or detective fiction could rise to the level of literature and encouraged Millar's interest in the genre.

For his fifth novel, in 1949, he wrote under the name John Macdonald (his father's first and middle names) in order to avoid confusion with his wife, who was achieving her own success writing asMargaret Millar.He then changed his pen name briefly to John Ross Macdonald, before settling on Ross Macdonald (Ross borrowed from a favorite cousin) in order to avoid being confused with fellow mystery writerJohn D. MacDonald,who was writing under his real name.Millar would use the pseudonym Ross Macdonald on all his fiction from the mid '50s forward.

Most of his books were set primarily in and around his adopted hometown of Santa Barbara. In these works, the city where Lew Archer is based goes under the fictional name of Santa Teresa.

In 1983 Macdonald died ofAlzheimer's disease.

Work

Macdonald first introduced the tough but humane private eyeLew Archerin the 1946 short story "Find the Woman" (credited then to "Ken Millar" ). A novel featuring him,The Moving Target,(1949) was the first in a series of eighteen. Macdonald mentions in the foreword to theArcher in Hollywoodomnibus that his detective derives his name fromSam Spade's partner, Miles Archer, and fromLewis Wallace,author ofBen-Hur,though the character was patterned onPhilip Marlowe.Macdonald also said the surname "Archer" was inspired by his own astrological sign ofSagittarius the archer.

The novels were hailed by genre fans and literary critics alike.He has been called the primary heir toDashiell HammettandRaymond Chandleras the master of Americanhardboiledmysteries.

Macdonald's writing built on the pithy style of his predecessors by adding psychological depth and insights into the motivations of his characters.His plots, described as of "baroque splendor", were complicated and often turned on Archer's unearthing family secrets of upwardly mobile clients, sometimes going back over several generations.Lost or wayward sons and daughters were a theme common to many of the novels.Critics have commented favorably on Macdonald's deft combination of the two sides of the mystery genre, the "whodunit" and the psychological thriller.Even his regular readers seldom saw a Macdonald denouement coming.

Tom Nolan, Macdonald's biographer, wrote,

"By any standard he was remarkable. His first books, patterned on Hammett and Chandler, were at once vivid chronicles of a postwar California and elaborate retellings of Greek and other classic myths. Gradually he swapped the hard-boiled trappings for more subjective themes: personal identity, the family secret, the family scapegoat, the childhood trauma; how men and women need and battle each other, how the buried past rises like a skeleton to confront the present. He brought the tragic drama of Freud and the psychology of Sophocles to detective stories, and his prose flashed with poetic imagery."

Recognition

The Lew Archer novels are recognized as some of the most significant American mystery books of the mid 20th century, bringing a literary sophistication to the genre. The criticJohn Leonarddeclared that Macdonald had surpassed the limits of crime fiction to become "a major American novelist".William Goldman,who adapted Macdonald'sThe Moving Targetto film asHarperin 1966, called his works "the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American".A later film adaptation wasThe Drowning Pool(1975), also starringPaul Newmanas the detective "Lew Harper".In addition,The Underground Manwas adapted as a TV movie in 1974.

Over his career, Macdonald was presented with several awards. In 1964, theMystery Writers of Americaawarded him the Silver Dagger award forThe Chill.Ten years later, he received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, and in 1982 he received "The Eye," the Lifetime AchievementShamus Awardfrom the Private Eye Writers of America. In 1982, he was awarded the Robert Kirsch Award by theLos Angeles Timesfor "an outstanding body of work by an author from the West or featuring the West."

Bibliography

Writing as Kenneth Millar

• The Dark Tunnel(a.k.a.I Die Slowly) – 1944
• Trouble Follows Me(a.k.a.Night Train) – 1946
• Blue City– 1947 (filmed withJudd NelsonasBlue City,1986)
• The Three Roads– 1948 (filmed withMichael SarrazinasDeadly Companion,1980)

These first four novels, all non-series standalones, were initially published using Millar's real name, but have since been intermittently reissued using his literary pseudonym, Ross Macdonald.

Other non-series novels

Two later non-series novels were also published:

• Meet Me at the Morgue(akaExperience With Evil) – 1953, credited to John Ross Macdonald
• The Ferguson Affair– 1960, credited to Ross Macdonald

Lew Archer

Novels

1. The Moving Target– 1949 (credited to John Macdonald, filmed with Paul Newman asHarper,1966)
2. The Drowning Pool– 1950 (also filmed with Paul Newman asThe Drowning Pool,1975)
3. The Way Some People Die– 1951
4. The Ivory Grin(akaMarked for Murder) – 1952
5. Find a Victim– 1954
6. The Barbarous Coast– 1956
7. The Doomsters– 1958
8. The Galton Case– 1959
9. The Wycherly Woman– 1961
10. The Zebra-Striped Hearse– 1962
11. The Chill– 1964
12. The Far Side of the Dollar– 1965 (1965 CWA Gold Dagger Award winner)
13. Black Money– 1966
14. The Instant Enemy– 1968
15. The Goodbye Look– 1969 (filmed asTayna1992)
16. The Underground Man– 1971 (filmed as a television series pilot in 1974)
17. Sleeping Beauty– 1973
18. The Blue Hammer– 1976

Short story collections

• The Name Is Archer(paperback original containing seven stories) – 1955
• Lew Archer: Private Investigator(The Name Is Archer+ two additional stories) – 1977
• Strangers in Town(unpublished drafts edited by Tom Nolan) - 2001
• The Archer Files,The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer Private Investigator, Including Newly Discovered Case Notes,ed. Tom Nolan – 2007.

Omnibuses

• Archer in Hollywood– 1967 includesThe Moving Target,The Way Some People Die,andThe Barbarous Coast.
• Archer at Large– 1970 includesThe Galton Case,The Chill,andBlack Money.
• Archer in Jeopardy– 1979 includesThe Doomsters,The Zebra-Striped Hearse,andThe Instant Enemy.
• Archer, P.I.—includesThe Ivory Grin,The Zebra-Striped HearseandThe Underground Man.Mystery Guild, 1990. Collects three Vintage Crime/Black Lizard printings.
• Ross MacDonald: Four Novels of the 1950s- May 2015, Library of America, includesThe Way Some People Die,The Barbarous Coast,The Doomsters,andThe Galton Case.
• Ross MacDonald: Three Novels of the Early 1960s- April 2016, Library of America, includesThe Zebra-Striped Hearse,The ChillandThe Far Side of the Dollar.
• Ross MacDonald: Four Later Novels- July 2017, Library of America, includesBlack Money,The Instant Enemy,The Goodbye Look,andThe Underground Man

British omnibuses

Allison & Busby published three Archer omnibus editions in the 1990s.

• The Lew Archer Omnibus. Vol. 1.includesThe Drowning Pool,The ChillandThe Goodbye Look.
• The Lew Archer Omnibus. Vol. 2.includesThe Moving Target,The Barbarous Coast,andThe Far Side of the Dollar
• The Lew Archer Omnibus. Vol. 3.includesThe Ivory Grin,The Galton Case,andThe Blue Hammer.

Non-fiction

• On Crime Writing– 1973, Santa Barbara: Capra Press, Series title: Yes! Capra chapbook series; no. 11, The Library of Congress bibliographic information includes this note: "Writing The Galton case."
• Self-Portrait, Ceaselessly Into the Past– 1981, Santa Barbara: Capra Press, collection of book prefaces, magazine articles and interviews.

References

• Bruccoli, Matthew J.Ross Macdonald.San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984.ISBN0-15-179009-4|ISBN0-15-679082-3
• "Ross Macdonald: Family Affairs" inS. T. Joshi,Varieties of Crime Fiction,pp. 97–106, (Wildside Press, 2019)ISBN978-1-4794-4546-2
• Kreyling, Michael. "The Novels of Ross Macdonald" University of South Carolina Press, 2005.ISBN1-57003-577-6
• Nolan, Tom.Ross Macdonald: A Biography.New York: Scribner, 1999.ISBN0-684-81217-7
• Nolan, Tom. "The Archer Files". Crippen & Landru 2007
• Schopen, Bernard A., "Ross MacDonald", Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1990.ISBN0-8057-7548-X

External links

• Marling, William,"Hard-Boiled Fiction",Case Western Reserve University
• J. Kingston Pierce, "50 Years with Lew Archer: An Anniversary Tribute to Ross Macdonald and His Heroic Yet Compassionate Private Eye,[1]byJanuary Magazine,April 1999]
• Lew Archer oder: Der Detektiv als Statthalter konkreter UtopieAn interview with Macdonald
• Leonard Cassuto, "The last testament of Ross Macdonald",The Boston Globe,11/2/2003