ME AND MY TRAVIS McGEE

When I first saw the Travis McGee paperbacks on the rack back in the sixties (yes, I am that old), I figured they weren’t for me. The cover art featuring hot guns and hotter gals in retina-scalding colors screamed ARGOSY or TRUE or MEN’S ADVENTURES to me. Simple-minded shoot-em-up, bed-em-quick throwaways which were not really in my comfort zone. So no go.

Then, about twenty years ago, having read some good stuff about John D. MacDonald’s work (from Stephen King, I think) I got curious, so when I spotted one of the McGee novels on the shelf at a used-book store, I picked it up. I read it, I loved it. So I gathered up all the others, 21 in all, and plowed through the entire series. With one odd exception, I thought they were all great.

Then, just a few months ago, I decided to do some re-reading in 2023. Most of the repeat fiction would be in the classic line--THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, MOBY DICK, DRACULA-- but I decided to mix some Travis McGee in there too. I started at the beginning with THE DEEP BLUE GOODBYE which was all I remembered and most of what I feared.

Of course, you can’t really expect a paperback action novel from 1964 to be exactly PC in the 21st Century, but, even so, the treatment of women is pretty icky. The ladies come in few varieties: cute and available; cute but awfully young; available but too easy; available but too old/ugly/hard; and pure bitches and/or airheads. 

Also, the occasional romantic dialogue is surprisingly soupy. Some of it would be more comfortable in a lady’s steamy bodice-ripper. Way too much of "oh, my darling!" for an action thriller.

But the plotting and the action are solid and they’re really what this customer came for. 

The second in the series, NIGHTMARE IN PINK, which I didn’t remember at all, is rather confounding. In the first place it’s set in New York City and its surrounds. We get an occasional mention of The Busted Flush and a single passing reference to the Alabama Tiger, but we don’t actually set foot in the familiar, comfy Florida locations till there are only four pages left in the book. I figure MacDonald hadn’t yet glommed onto the elements of the formula which would make McGee and his world so attractive to readers and which would make them so anxious to return to it over and over. 

It also felt odd--and rather disappointing--the way the book ended. After pages and pages of putting Trav through all sorts of hell--physical, mental, emotional--the (very) bad guys, though brought to justice, receive kind of mild comeuppances. All the time I was reading of the torture McGee endured, I assumed, expected, and, frankly hoped for, some suitable payback. Some massive revenge to be honest. And it seemed strange that MacDonald didn’t give us that.

It’s also interesting to track MacDonald’s political/societal commentary. On one page we read a diatribe which convinces us that MacDonald (and McGee) must line up to the right of Attila the Hun. Then a few pages later the rant reads as if it came from a bearded revolutionary ready to bomb Wall Street and take to the barricades. I came away thinking that author and character were just mad at the whole damn world.

MacDonald also struggles a bit with his first person narrative. Of course, that’s the way we want him to do it. We want to hear Trav’s own thoughts. But too often McGee has to describe himself. No matter how sidelong the approach, it curdles a bit to read McGee referring to his own steely grey eyes, his own damaged but still knightly armor, his own notable physique.

I’ll get to the third in the series,  A PURPLE PLACE FOR DYING, before too much time passes and I look forward to it. I expect to see MacDonald find his footing and develop an ease in his style in the next couple of entries.  And, of course, even with their faults, they’re such fun.