Why Didn't You Tell Me? (Part Five)

 

Over the past few years, I have read an absurd amount of John D. MacDonald books and have grown to envy the way his stories flow so beautifully. He makes writing seem easy. It’s not. But then MacDonald worked diligently at being an author, in a disciplined, professional sense, which is partly why he was almost ridiculously prolific and why there are still plenty of his books left for me to read. He certainly could spin a cracking yarn, and some of his novels I would rate up there with the very best.

A particular favourite is A Flash of Green, a book dedicated to “Sam Prentiss, Jim Neville, Tom Dickinson, and all others opposed to the uglification of America.” It is essentially an environmental protest tale, with a strong theme of populist political corruption, and even some easily manipulated violent far-right Christian fundamentalists, so when reading it you can easily lose track of the fact it was published in 1962 rather than in the present-day. And it’s not without precedent in the author’s extensive canon, as 1959’s misleadingly titled The Beach Girls touches on the relentless tide of redevelopment threatening to tear the heart and soul out of a Florida marina community.

MacDonald’s works, for me, are absurdly addictive, impressively varied, often incredibly moving (I am thinking of The Only Girl in the Game here, as I often seem to), frequently surprising, like his 1957 novel Death Trap with its theme of a young kid we would now class as autistic being framed for murder in a small town, and generally his books have a lot more depth to them than the lurid blurbs would have you expect.

So, having methodically worked through MacDonald’s 21 Travis McGee novels (which provide a remarkable insight into the American psyche, from the assassination of JFK through to the time of Reagan), I moved onto his standalone novels, with a particular interest initially in how these developed from, roughly, the start of the 1960s and how they lead to, fit in with or complement his Travis titles.

One of the first I read was A Flash of Green, which is set in and around MacDonald’s adopted home, in Palm County on Florida’s Gulf Coast, just before the Travis McGee series starts. I was impressed by the effectiveness of the conservation theme, and how this was something close to MacDonald’s heart, an issue he felt strongly about in real life. But pretty much everything he ever wrote seems credible. He always did an incredible amount of research, so there was genuine knowledge involved, and he often went deep into the detail in his stories. Kurt Vonnegut, a friend and fan, has written about MacDonald’s passionate interest in people, which makes sense.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (“all the time in the world and you never changed a thing”) was also published in 1962, but I guess I associate the environmental movement with the late 1960s counter-culture, and the novel I immediately think of is Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang, together with musical expression like Marvin’s ‘Mercy Mercy Me’, the Beach Boys’ ‘Don’t Go Near The Water’, and those two linked-together in my mind works of wonder, David Axelrod’s Earth Rot and Gary McFarland’s America the Beautiful: An Account of its Disappearance.

McFarland’s masterpiece (which I suspect many of us first heard via the él reissue a couple of decades back) features on its sleeve Marya Mannes’ powerful micro-essay ‘Wasteland’, which includes the memorable line: “The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.” Again, it is important to note this appears not on some present-day website but in Marya’s 1958 publication More in Anger, a collection of pieces fuelled by her indignation at the state of America, or to be more precise its people and their aversion to individuality and risk-taking.

If it is not easy to walk into a bookshop and buy a new copy of a John D. MacDonald novel, much of his writing is at least readily available in digital editions. This is not the case with Marya Mannes’ work. And yet, she wrote a lot, notably as a reporter, columnist, cultural commentator, opinion-writer, from a feminist, liberal perspective, in the heyday of magazines such as Vogue, Esquire, McCall's, Harper's and The New Republic, and she was also a regular guest on TV and radio. Whew! Those were different times. Marya’s work is a rabbit hole well worth disappearing down. A good starting point is in the invaluable Studs Terkel radio archives where you can listen to him and Marya in 1964 discussing her book on consumerism eating the soul of America, But Will it Sell? It is worth pointing out that Marya was 60 at the time, and Studs was 52. John D. MacDonald would have been 48.

One of the highlights of MacDonald’s A Flash of Green is the nature of the protest committee, and how it’s made up of a disparate bunch of eccentrics and idealists, which has the ring of truth, and I guess is based on the author’s own experience of how such an ad hoc organisation works, how it attempts to mobilise conservation groups as well as how it connects with pretty much anyone interested in the preservation of natural beauty and who opposes the ways unscrupulous property development affects fish, birds, tide patterns, beach erosion, etc. The committee is affectionately known as the S.O.B.s, which is to do with ‘save our bays’ rather than one of Davy Henderson’s musical incarnations.

In the past the S.O.B.s have seen off a national conglomeration of speculators, but this time the forces of evil are closer to home and controlled by the deeply unpleasant Elmo Bliss, head of a successful construction corporation and a county commissioner with eyes on the prize of being a national politician. He is a former football player, a guy from a poor background who married well, and someone who is incredibly popular with the working-class voters for whom he has done some good things, yet he is the avaricious, shadowy figure behind a local consortium of prominent businessmen.

Bliss is a win at any price kind of a guy, and indulges indirectly in all sorts of psyops, dirty tricks, smear campaigns, extortion, and blatant bullying, which is where the horrendously homophobic self-appointed moral guardians, the Army of the Lord, come in. This is a religious sect, led by street corner preachers who are overtly militant, “to the right of the John Birch Society,” and who burn books and all the rest.

Central to the novel is male weakness and this is embodied by the strangely conflicted Jimmy Wing, a small-town reporter in his mid-30s, someone who is good at his job, but who goes to great lengths to avoid his conscience. He hasn’t had it easy, he has a wife who is mentally ill, and the “strain of the bad years had somehow leeched away his eagerness for a greater challenge.” His pragmatism and fatalism means he is ripe for people like Elmo Bliss to use for their unpleasant ends, until he reaches a breaking point, and must decide whether he can do the right thing, which is where the novel spectacularly veers off into prime David Goodis territory.

The real hero of the story is Kat Hubble, described as being a Wellesley liberal, who is a widow with two young kids, worried about making ends meet, but who nevertheless is fearless in her fighting for the conservation cause. She is not an anomaly in MacDonald’s writing. I recently discovered on the Mystery*File site an interview the writer Ed Gorman did with John D. MacDonald in 1984. MacDonald hated the interview process, so this is a treat, and of particular interest as it took place towards the end of his life. In it Ed asks about the strong, quiet female characters in the Travis McGee series. The author admits to being attracted by strong people, and adds: “Nobody, of course, is too strong to ever be broken. And that is McGee’s forte, helping the strong broken ones mend.”

Because that’s how it goes: when the pressure’s on, the weak walk away and they’re fine, while the strong keep going, doggedly overcoming all obstacles in their way, quietly keepin’ on keepin’ on, loyal, determined not to let the side down and or let themselves down, carrying on when any sensible person would be screaming for help, until yeah, inevitably, they break. And that’s it.

MacDonald is essentially an entertainer, someone with a gift who transcended genres like mystery, thriller, noir, suspense, hard-boiled, and crime. His creation Travis McGee was truly subversive in the way he identified as a beach bum, kept in good shape physically and mentally, was essentially economically inactive, happy to lead a life of leisure on his boat in Florida, carrying out occasional ‘salvage’ commissions and righting a wrong or two along the way, a knight on a white horse, albeit a truly imperfect and far-from-gentle valorous soul. Part of the fun of the series is the philosophical asides, the state-of-the-nation soliloquies, which were often relatively enlightened for the times. Another attraction is the habit MacDonald has of introducing “unobtrusive poetry” (his own phrase) which serves to elevate the pop art form he is part of.

I was struck a while back by something he wrote in The Empty Copper Sea, from 1978 so it is one of the last in his Travis McGee series, where Travis struggles to describe his great love, a special lady called Gretel: “She fitted in with any recitation of one of my lists of good words: pound sweet apples, song by Eydie, pine forests, spring water, old wool shirts, night silence, fresh Golden Bantam, first run of a hooked permit, Canadian geese, coral reefs, good leather, thunderstorms, wooden beams, beach walking, Gretel. We all have the lists. Different lists for different times of day and of life. Our little barometers of excellence, recording inner climate.”

Isn’t that beautiful? And we do all have lists like that, don’t we? Yet I must confess that reference to Eydie Gormé there threw me slightly. MacDonald had a great interest in culture and music, and endowed Travis McGee with what was surely his own taste, making him an MJQ, Brubeck, Bach kind of a guy, with a fondness for records by Joe Pass and Julian Bream. He hated loud thumping rock music, and I seem to recall he was no fan of country sounds. And he had one character called Cindy Birdsong, but I have no idea if that is coincidental or not.

Until I had read the Travis McGee books, I’d not really thought very much about Eydie Gormé. Oh, I knew that she sang alone and with husband Steve Lawrence, and that Eydie and Steve were enduring, engaging versatile entertainers in an easy listening, MOR, adult contemporary way, well-connected and widely respected for their professionalism, but that was about it, really, as far as my knowledge went, which made me feel rather guilty, and prompted me to investigate further.

I found that Eydie could really belt them out, in a Judy Garland or Barbra Streisand kind of way, almost approaching at times Timi Yuro territory. She could really sing, from the heart, being at one moment volcanic and, in the next, soft and intimate, then she would be goofing around in a self-deprecating way. Steve, meanwhile, was a great old-school crooner, a classic case of the boy looked at Francis Albert, not unlike Andy Williams I guess in his approach. I have read that the teenage Scott Walker was a fan, and I would recommend seeking out Steve’s remarkably wonderful mid-1960s version of ‘Ballad of the Sad Young Men’.

I guess you could tag Eydie Gormé and Steve Lawrence as an archetypal all-American, wholesome, handsome pair, which is not bad for a couple born as Sidney Leibowitz, the son of a cantor, and Edith Gormezano straight out of the Bronx. A square pair, though? Well, they loved their standards and show tunes, sure, but they were happy to have a go at Brill Building pop, and Eydie is perhaps best known for her novelty hit, ‘Blame it on the Bossa Nova’, an early Mann & Weil composition.

And they were also early adopters of Goffin & King songs. Steve’s big Stateside hit was their ‘Go Away Little Girl’, while Eydie’s recording of ‘The Dance is Over’ I actually have on a cash-in Songs of Carole King 3CD set. Steve and Eydie together did a great take on the Goffin & King number ‘I Want to Stay Here’ and Eydie’s ‘Everybody Go Home’ is well worth seeking out. The latter, judging by YouTube comments, is fondly remembered as a regular final record at soul clubs, back in the day.

Anyway, in his 1971 Travis McGee story A Tan and Sandy Silence, MacDonald writes: “Eydie has comforted me many times in periods of stress. She has the effortlessness of total professionalism. She is just so damned good that people have not been able to believe she is as good as she is. She’s been handed a lot of dull material, some of it so bad that even her best hasn’t been able to bring it to life. She’s been mishandled, booked into the right places at the wrong time, the wrong places at the right time. But she can do every style and do it a little better than the people who can’t do any other. Maybe a generation from now those old discs and tapes of Eydie will be the collectors’ joy, because she does it all true, does it all with pride, does it all with heart.”

Eydie’s back catalogue really is a minefield. She has been poorly served by the CD market (I don’t recall seeing any of her CDs in charity shops), even in its heyday, and streaming does not make things any clearer. I like to think that John D. MacDonald would have had a special place in his heart for a superb record Eydie and Steve made with Luiz Bonfá in 1967. This is an LP I had been aware of for some time, but only heard relatively recently, and now wonder why nobody told me about how wonderful it is.

The songs are all by Bonfá, the arrangements are by Eumir Deodato, Ron Carter is on bass, and Dom Um Romão is on percussion. Understandably, then, it is an incredibly lovely record, and one worthy of MacDonald’s prophecy about collectors’ joy. And the cover is gloriously bizarre, as it looks like an early awkward selfie, and actually perhaps is, as the photography is credited to Luiz.

It is not random speculation about this record, for my favourite musical reference in the Travis McGee series comes in 1970’s The Long Lavender Look where he is spending time with a lady called Betsy, a waitress who has a passion for tapes of Brazilian music: “’There!’ she said above the music of Mr. Bonfá, and went off to get rid of the occupational odor of burning meat, leaving me in my fabulously comfortable chair, next to a drink that would tranquilize a musk ox, semirecumbent in a static forest of bric-a-brac, listening to Maria Toledo breathe Portuguese love words at me in reasonably good stereo.” Ah, but was this Braziliana, the stunning LP arranged by Bobby Scott, or the equally fine one Luiz and Maria made with Deodato a little later?

The other Eydie recordings that have really grabbed me are a pair of LPs from the dawn of the 1970s, Tonight I'll Say A Prayer and It Was A Good Time, recorded at that point where easy listening blended with inventive pop so successfully, and so many artists’ repertoires included songs by Bacharach & David, Jimmy Webb, and so on. These Eydie albums, recorded with her long-time arranger and producer Don Costa, also feature songs by Gayle Caldwell, of ‘Cycles’ and Sinatra fame, and by the talented team of Paul Williams & Roger Nicholls.

It Was a Good Time features fantastic interpretations of the Goffin & King classics ‘Goin’ Back’ and ‘Oh No Not My Baby’ which I would recommend strongly. Similarly, seek out an Ed Sullivan TV show clip of Edie in 1970 singing The Beatles’ ‘Fool on the Hill’ via Sergio. Even better is a clip from a January 1970 Hollywood Palace TV variety show of Steve and Eydie performing a stunning  medley of contemporary pop, including snippets of ‘You Made Me So Very Happy’, ‘More Today Than Yesterday’, and ‘Hurt So Bad’! The sound quality is not great, but this is a masterclass in stepping outside of one’s comfort zone, and the chemistry between the singers is incredible. Oh, and check out Steve’s cover of the Rascals’ ‘Groovin’’, as it is gorgeous.

Another of my favourite John D. MacDonald incidental musical references comes in the novel, One More Sunday, one of the very last ones he wrote, published in early 1984, where a very unpleasant individual is listening to a tape of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s “intricate music.” This was not the first time he had mentioned the MJQ, as in Pale Grey for Guilt, there is a scene where another special lady in Travis’ life picks out from McGee’s record shelves a copy of the then-recent Blues at Carnegie Hall to play.

One More Sunday is the story of The Eternal Church of the Believer, and the murky world of hi-tech TV evangelists and big business, and how “they rope in their supporters by playing on their fears and on their hatred and their loneliness.” Or, as one character puts it: “These sects, these electronic ministries, give far too strong a suggestion of trading on ignorance, fear, bigotry.”

That’s not how the ministry itself sees things, though. Indeed, they see their role as being to “save us God-fearing Christians from the destructive and traitorous acts and schemes of the socialists who have wormed their way into power in our nation’s capital.” Hardly surprising then that the Eternal Church is pro-life, all about America for Americans, anti-Unions, and all that, which all sounds horribly topical.

And yet it is incredibly popular, and for many, many people “it’s the whole world to them, and heaven too, and it keeps them going in hard times,” as someone accused of being a Joan Didion-imitator concedes. When reading about these fundamentalists it is easy to sense MacDonald’s sadness at this corruption of the essential Christian message.

 A central theme of the book is the poison in the system, the “suggestion of a destructive madness” within the organization. With horrible irony, the sect’s founding father is fading fast, lost in a fog of “progressive and irreversible” Alzheimer’s, that cruel disease which, as the book depicts, had hitherto been dismissed as senility. There is also what must have been one of the earliest (sympathetic) mentions of AIDS in a mass market paperback.

The one standalone novel MacDonald published after One More Sunday was Barrier Island in 1986 which kind of returns to the conservation vs. corruption themes of A Flash of Green, with a stark battle between wrong and right, featuring Tucker Loomis, a rather familiar, grotesquely ruthless, greedy, cruel, larger-than-life individual, and his nemesis Wade Rowley, a really nice, decent, principled guy who is described as having a John Denver type of face. And, without giving too much away, the turning point in the book comes when a particularly brave woman decides to do the right thing at exactly the right time, no matter what the personal consequences might be. It is one hell of a book.

If you delve around on the Internet, you may stumble across scans of Reading for Survival, an entertaining essay MacDonald wrote shortly before his death in 1986, and which was later published by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. In the introduction it states that “to Mr. MacDonald, the ability to read was not only a source of pleasure, but a survival skill.” Indeed! And there’s a sentence in the essay which has stayed with me, about how those who read widely will “acquire what I think of as the educated climate of mind, a climate characterized by skepticism, irony, doubt, hope, and a passion to learn more and remember more." Yeah! I like that.