I recently picked up a bunch of JDM paperbacks at my local
used bookstore for a dollar or two each. They included A Key
to the Suite, A Flash of Green, The Executioners and Where is
Janice Gantry?
I've already finished Key to the Suite and I thought it was
good, but not great. I guess it would be classified as a
crime novel, though the deaths in the novel were accidental.
But it wasn't a typical Gold Medal crime novel. Yes, there
was a femme fatale and lots of heavy drinking, a few punches
thrown, but no real crime to speak of. I know I'm in the
minority here since at least a half dozen of you expressed
enthusiasm for the book. But with JDM I'm always reminded of
what Capote once said of Kerouac, he doesn't write, he types.
Besides Kerouac, I've read other authors who seem to sit down
and start typing to see where the story takes them without
seeming to have worked out the plot ahead of time. This would
certainly explain how JDM could be so prolific.
It almost seems as though JDM got almost to the end of Key to
the Suite and realized that he was intending to write a crime
novel, but no crime had been committed. Then he creates a
situation that's so hopelessly convoluted 17 pages before the
end that you wonder what the hell the denouement will
be.
I haven't been deterred yet from finding a great MacDonald
novel, though.
Jeff
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