“Distinction Is Everything”

I’ve written about novelist Ross Macdonald many times in The Rap Sheet, so I was going to blow off the fact that today would have been his 93rd birthday (had he not perished as a result of Alzheimer’s disease in 1983). Ninety-three isn’t a nice round number to commemorate, not like 90; and hey, I just remarked on Macdonald’s birthday two years ago.

But then came two reminders of Macdonald’s life and career, and I decided that that was one too many for me to ignore. First, this morning’s edition of The Writer’s Almanac noted that the author was

born Kenneth Millar in Los Gatos, California (1915). His father abandoned the family, and his mother struggled to support him, occasionally begging for money on the street. He read a lot growing up, even climbing the fire escape of the town library at night so that he could read the authors who were off limits to young people during the day.

One summer, he won a typewriter in a radio quiz show. He started publishing stories and humor pieces, and wrote some moderately successful spy and crime novels. And then he invented a private investigator named Lew Archer. He wrote a book about his new character, a book called The Moving Target (1949), and he went on to write 18 Lew Archer novels. Most of these novels are about characters trying to uncover some mystery at the heart of their families, often having to do with lost fathers. Millar became known as one of the authors who helped elevate the mystery novel to the level of serious literature.

The second reminder came via Bill Crider. It seems there’s a former newspaper book review editor in Wisconsin by the name of Roger K. Miller, and he has a rather well-done blog called The View from Graustark. He chose today to write about Macdonald/Millar, drawing largely from his reading of Tom Nolan’s 1999 book, Ross Macdonald: A Biography. To quote from Miller’s post:

But, as the Wise Old Newspaper Filosofer once said, one thought per column, and the thought I’d impress upon you in this column is: what a thoroughly decent, considerate, kind, ethical, and humble man Millar was. Not simply because those can be rare qualities in the arts, but because they form a strain running all through Nolan’s book.

Millar gave aid and comfort to fellow writers and to aspiring writers. He would write long, thoughtful replies to fans who sent him enthusiastic letters. He helped those in trouble; the singer-songwriter Warren Zevon credits Millar with saving his life. Millar was even nice toward those who treated him shabbily, like his forerunner and eventual rival for literary reputation, Raymond Chandler, who apparently thought--correctly--that someone was gaining on him.

Nor was he, as so often happens, a hero to the world and a monster to his family. His wife, Margaret Millar, equally renowned as a mystery writer, apparently could be a bit of a dragon, but they loved and supported each other though more than four decades of marriage. Both agonized over the emotional troubles of their only child, Linda, who died at 31.

Still, one thought per column aside, they don’t write biographies of people for being nice; they write them because they achieved something. It is futile in this short oblong of space to try and explain Millar’s achievement as a writer. Nolan and his interviewees explain it superbly. A Bantam publicist caught it succinctly. With Lew Archer, the publicist said, Ross Macdonald began the trend away from writing mystery novels to writing “novels that dealt with mysteries.” The distinction is everything, and Macdonald did it with distinction.

Miller’s is a blog post full of warmth and compassion. I encourage you to read the whole thing.