Travis McGee is a fictional character and detective created by prolific American mystery writer John D. MacDonald. Unlike almost all other detectives from crime fiction, McGee is neither a police officer nor a licensed private investigator; rather, he's a self-described "salvage consultant" who recovers others' property for a fee. McGee appeared in 21 novels, from The Deep Blue Good-by in 1964 to The Lonely Silver Rain in 1984. In 1980, the McGee novel The Green Ripper won the National Book Award.
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Profile
Travis McGee lives on a custom-made 52-foot barge-type houseboat dubbed The Busted Flush (after the pivotal poker hand that won it for him), docked at Slip F-18 at Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale, FL. A self-described beach bum who takes his retirement "in installments", he prefers to take on new cases only when the spare cash (besides a reserve fund) in a hidden safe in the Flush runs low. McGee also owns a custom Rolls Royce that had been converted into a pickup truck long before he bought it, and painted "a horrid electric blue" by the same demented hand that did the conversion. Travis named it Miss Agnes, after one of his elementary school teachers whose hair was the same shade.
McGee's business card reads Salvage Consultant, and most business comes by word of mouth. His clients are usually people who've been deprived of something important and/or valuable (typically by unscrupulous [and sometimes also legal] means) and have no way to regain it lawfully. McGee's usual fee is half the value of the item (if recovered) plus expenses, and those who object to such a seemingly high fee are reminded that getting back half of something is better than nothing at all. Although the missing items are often tangible (e.g., rare stamps, jewels, etc.), in several books McGee is asked to locate a missing person; in one, the stolen property is a client's reputation. In several instances, he shows a marked propensity to exact revenge, usually for the ill-treatment or death of one of his few real friends.
Physically, McGee is a tall, tanned, sandy-haired man with pale grey eyes. Several books hint (or explicitly state) that he's a USMC veteran of the Korean War (though, as with many serial characters, later books are less precise about exactly when he served). He was a stand-out college football player (at tight end) and played professional football for several seasons before a knee injury forced him into retirement; despite his age, he retains the quickness and agility of a professional athlete. He stands 6'4" (1.95 m) tall and, although deceptively unimposing at his "fighting weight" of 205 lbs. (93 kg), he's much stronger than he looks, with thick wrists and long arms; occasionally, a more perspicacious adversary notes these features when deciding whether to tangle with him or not. McGee purposely cultivates an image of being uncoordinated, shambling, and clumsy but has superb reflexes and muscle memory. He has a 33-inch waist, wears a size 46 long jacket, and a shirt with a 17 1/2" neck and 34" arms. McGee often discusses his fitness regimen, usually in terms of regaining his fitness after a lazy period: swimming and sprinting are frequently mentioned. As a martial art strategy, he often covers his face and blocks punches with his arms and elbows to lull and tire his opponent while studying that opponent's fighting style. In the final novel, McGee is described as practicing the Chinese art of Tai Chi Chuan.
McGee's early life and family are deliberately left undeveloped; among the few explicit mentions of family are a memory of attending a Chicago parade with his father as a boy, and a brother with whom Travis planned to go into business after his military service. The brother was apparently swindled out of his savings in a scam involving a woman and a male accomplice and committed suicide; it's strongly hinted that Travis subsequently killed the woman and her partner. McGee's ethnicity is Irish-American; his father's first name is never given, but his mother's maiden name is given as Mary Catherine Devlin.
While McGee notes in "Free Fall in Crimson" (1981) that he has "cut a wide swath through a wall of female flesh." he is honest and cynical enough to understand what this says about himself. This is a part of his introspective nature that frequently appears throughout the series, with observations about society around him, with particular notice paid to the changing Florida environment. McGee's cynical image of himself, some variation of which appears in every book in the series, is as a knight in rusty armor with a broken lance and swaybacked steed, fighting for what he fears are outdated or unrealistic ideals.
However, unlike other fictional detectives such as Raymond Chandler's jaded and world-weary Philip Marlowe, McGee clings to what's important to him: his senses of honor, obligation, and outrage. In a classic commentary in Bright Orange for the Shroud, McGee muses,
"Now, of course, having failed in every attempt to subdue the Glades by frontal attack, we are slowly killing it off by tapping the River of Grass. In the questionable name of progress, the state in its vast wisdom lets every two-bit developer divert the flow into drag-lined canals that give him 'waterfront' lots to sell. As far north as Corkscrew Swamp, virgin stands of ancient bald cypress are dying. All the area north of Copeland had been logged out, and will never come back. As the glades dry, the big fires come with increasing frequency. The ecology is changing with egret colonies dwindling, mullet getting scarce, mangrove dying of new diseases born of dryness."
This was from a paperback originally published in 1965 when the general public was still not conversant with the concept of environmentalism.
McGee does have a sidekick of sorts, in his best friend Dr. Meyer ("Just 'Meyer', please," he would insist), an internationally known and respected economist who lives on a cabin cruiser of his own near McGee's at Bahia Mar, the John Maynard Keynes, and later, after the Keynes is blown up, aboard its replacement, the Thorstein Veblen. There is no definite statement whether Meyer is a first or last name, although he was once introduced, in the course of a scam, as "G. Ludweg Meyer." This may have been a false name, but the tendency of strangers to address Meyer as "Dr. Meyer" would seem to indicate it is probably his surname. Both Meyer's boats are jammed full of books and treatises, ranging far beyond simple economic theory. For instance, Meyer is a chess aficionado and amateur psychologist. Meyer serves as Travis's anchor when McGee's own inner compass seems to be skewed, as well as providing the formal education that the street-smart McGee lacks.
Some world-weariness does eventually creep into McGee's character, perhaps because the 1960s Florida in which he originated no longer exists. The only direct indications of his age ever given are comments that he had served in the Korean War, and until the 1980s he seems ageless. But as the story progresses, minor recurring characters began to drop away and it becomes apparent that McGee himself is getting older, along with his creator. In later novels such as The Green Ripper and Free Fall in Crimson, there is a sense of desperation that the violence in the world is too senseless to be explained and will never end. Much of that dissipates with the ending of The Lonely Silver Rain, which became the final volume when MacDonald died in 1986. (Rumors[1] of another final McGee novel, possibly narrated by Meyer, entitled A Black Border for McGee and to be published posthumously, have never been confirmed.)
About the Travis McGee novels
Beginning with The Deep Blue Good-By, released in March of 1964, each of the twenty-one novels featuring Travis McGee has a title that incorporates a color. The first three books in the Travis McGee series were published in quick succession, at the rate of one a month, a highly unusual publishing strategy. According to MacDonald, he had earlier written an introductory novel about McGee that he burned as being unsatisfactory. Also, according to MacDonald, he had originally named the character Dallas McGee, but after the assassination of President John Kennedy, he decided that name had too many negative connotations. He was searching for a first name for McGee when a friend suggested that he look at the names of the many Air Force bases in California. MacDonald's attention was caught by Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, and he named his character accordingly.
McGee has been called the first great modern Florida adventurer, preceding characters and situations that appeared in novels by authors such as Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, James W. Hall, and Les Standiford. Hiaasen specifically acknowledged his debt in an introduction he wrote for a new edition of The Deep Blue Good-By in 1994, commenting that even though MacDonald was now eight years gone, he believed McGee was still around, probably sipping gin on the deck of the Busted Flush and pondering whatever it was that Florida had become or was becoming. Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett expressed similar sentiments in the lyrics of the song "Incommunicado".
Many of the science fiction novels and stories of author Spider Robinson also contain references to Travis McGee. McGee has also been linked to the Wold Newton family.
Unknown to most followers of McGee, the Library of Congress's "Center for the Book" commissioned a short work by MacDonald. He responded with an essay entitled "Reading for Survival", which is a conversation between McGee and Meyer on the importance of reading. The 26-page essay was released in a limited edition of 5,000 copies and was available for a small contribution to the Center for the Book.
Novels
- The Deep Blue Good-by (1964)
- Nightmare in Pink (1964)
- A Purple Place for Dying (1964)
- The Quick Red Fox (1964)
- A Deadly Shade of Gold (1965)
- Bright Orange for the Shroud (1965)
- Darker than Amber (1966)
- One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966)
- Pale Gray for Guilt (1968)
- The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper (1968)
- Dress Her in Indigo (1969)
- The Long Lavender Look (1970)
- A Tan and Sandy Silence (1971)
- The Scarlet Ruse (1972)
- The Turquoise Lament (1973)
- The Dreadful Lemon Sky (1974)
- The Empty Copper Sea (1978)
- The Green Ripper (1979)
- Free Fall in Crimson (1981)
- Cinnamon Skin (1982)
- The Lonely Silver Rain (1984)
Adaptations
Travis McGee has twice been translated to cinema and television, unsuccessfully; Rod Taylor played McGee in Darker Than Amber (1970), and Sam Elliott played him in the television movie of The Empty Copper Sea, titled Travis McGee (1983). Inexplicably, the latter film locates McGee in California (!) — eliminating the Florida locales central to the novels. In 1967, author MacDonald refused permission for a television series about Travis McGee and his cases, feeling people would stop reading the novels were Travis McGee regularly on television. Comedian Dan Rowan, a friend of MacDonald's, had expressed interest in playing the role of Travis McGee, but nothing ever materialized. Actor Darren McGavin provided the voice of Travis McGee in the majority of the audiobook versions of the novels. According to the Internet Movie Database, a film version of The Deep Blue Good-by is in development with a tentative release date of 2010.
Literary landmark
When the U.S. organization Friends of Libraries U.S.A. decided to institute a series of literary landmark plaques analogous to historic landmark markers, the first to be installed was at Slip F18 in Bahia Mar, the anchorage of the Busted Flush.[1]
References
- ^ [http://www.folusa.org/resources/html-versions/fact-sheet-12.php Literary Landmarks factsheet
External links
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