WILL UNWOUND #220: “Will’s Mystery Project – ‘The Empty Copper Sea’ by John D. MacDonald
September 4, 2010My guess is that the great Grandpapa of the tough, hard boiled private dick was a guy who never wrote a mystery – Ernest Hemingway. He was the hairy chested, balls to the wall he-man writer who glorified all things masculine…getting drunk, killing things, waging war, bull fighting, bar room brawling, gun running, fornicating, and carousing.
What set Hemingway apart from the dime store novelists whose subject matter was equally puerile was his tough, spare writing style. He used words as blunt instruments. Many lesser literary lights tried to copy Hemingway’s severe sense of minimalism, but they never quite got it right which made them look foolish. In his aging years, Hemingway’s abusive lifestyle had rendered him unable to muster up the necessary discipline to force his words into the tightly wound structure of his master works, and he became one more foolish Hemingway imitator. So he shot himself.
Hemingway’s glorification of the no holds barred macho lifestyle went out of fashion pretty quickly with the emergence of women’s liberation in the 1970s and the subsequent emergence of the new sensitive metro sexual male in the 1980s and 90s. Changing diapers was now cool and beating people up in bars was definitely not.
My theory, however, is that the Hemingway tough guy never fully disappeared from the literary landscape. He lives on in the stoic but violent lives of the tough, hard boiled private dicks who still populate a number of bestselling murder mysteries. One of the more famous members of this genre is Travis McGee, the creation of author John D. MacDonald, a man who grew up reading every book Hemingway ever wrote.
McGee has been described as a knight in rusted armor. Yes, he lives to right the wrongs of the little guy, but along the way he does a lot of brawling, killing, carousing, and fornicating. Above all, McGee values his freedom. He lives alone in Fort Lauderdale on a house boat, “The Busted Flush,” named not for its bad plumbing but for the hand with which McGee won it in a poker game. To make ends meet he works as a salvage expert, which means that if you have something taken away from you unfairly, McGee will get it back for you and keep half of its value as his commission.
In The Empty Copper Sea, McGee’s challenge is to salvage the reputation (and the operating license) of a charter boat captain falsely accused of dereliction of duty resulting in a lost, missing, or dead body. Solving the mystery of the whereabouts of the body is how McGee figures to make everything right.
The plot about the missing body is actually kind of silly and with every twist and turn becomes even sillier. It’s not the reason why I stuck with this book. I kept turning pages because I had a kind of train wreck fascination with McGee. In this book, he’s having a bit of an existential crisis that is far more interesting than the mystery itself.
For those of us who have lived fairly conventional lives centered around career and family, there is always the “what if” question when we encounter a free spirit like McGee. What if we had chosen the carefree life of a house boat wanderer? Would we be happier or more fulfilled? In this book at least McGee gives us the dark side of foot loose and fancy free. Consider this little monologue:
- “I had a sudden wrenching urge to shed my own identity and be somebody else. Somehow I had managed to lock myself into this unlikely and unsatisfying self, this Travis McGee, shabby knight errant fighting for small, lost, unimportant causes deluding myself with the belief that I am in some sense freer than your average fellow, and that it is a very good thing to have escaped the customary trap of regular hours, regular pay, home and kiddies, Christmas bonus, backyard bar-B-cue, hospitalization, and the family burial plot. All I have is a trap of a slightly different size and shape. Just as the idea of an ancient hippie is gross and ludicrous, so is the idea of an elderly beach bum.”
Thank you, Mr. McGee. The mystery is solved. Freedom does not always equal happiness. Now I’ve got to get back to my grandchildren.
I give The Empty Copper Sea 2 stars (out of five).
May I suggest 4 of my favorites? Harlan Coban’s CAUGHT, Elizabeth George’s CARELESS IN RED, Peter Robinson’s IN A DRY SEASON, and Stuart Kaminsky’s BLACK KNIGHT IN RED SQUARE.
Roberta, thanks. I’m going to be on a bunch of planes this month criss crossing the country so I need some good recommendations.
Slip F-18 at Bahia Mar Marina
was declared a “Dedicated Literary Landmark” on February 21, 1987 by the Florida Center for the Book, Literary Landmark Association.
From a 1994 press release–John D. MacDonald, also devoted to reading.
_Reading for Survival_ by John D. MacDonald (1916-1986), has been reprinted by the Library of Congress under the sponsorship of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and the Florida Center for the Book. (1994)
http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1994/94-007.html
Kathleen…thanks for the info. I will have to read “Reading for Survival.”
Ah, Will. We certainly disagree on the number of stars for this one. Travis McGee starts from a base of three stars and can only move up from there. Copper Colored Sea gets at least 3.5 and possibly a 4.
It probably comes from a different valuing of Hemingway. If Nabokov isn’t an American writer (and I’d call him Russian), I’d rank Hemingway as the second best American writer; only Twain is ahead of him.
But you’re right on this: McGee is well behind Lew Archer and barely in the same universe as The Continental Op, Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe.
Bill: here’s my view of Hemingway: his short stories are the best ever written period. His taut minimalistic style was perfect for the short story format. “The Sun Also Rises” was his novelistic masterpiece, but all the other stuff ranges from good to really bad. My theory is that he simply could not sustain his minimalistic style over longer works. Actually no one could.
Will–Loved your review. I’ve never been a Travis McGee fan. I just read, with great pleasure, Elizabeth George’s DECEPTION ON HIS MIND. George specializes in mysteries about complicated people in complicated situations. This one, which was about the murder of a Pakistani in a seaside town in England, was wonderfully full of cultural complexities. Your Mystery project list has you reading A GREAT DELIVERANCE, which is probably a very good place to start with the series.
So, Beth…if you were me would you read “Deception” or “A Great Deliverance” for this project?
A Great Deliverance–it introduces the characters.
Thanks for the review, Will – as a librarian I am of course familiar with Travis McGee, but haven’t actually read any of John MacDonald’s, and had been wondering if I should. I think I’ll pass.
Thanks for another excellent review! If an anti-hero would be fun, don’t wait too long to enter the world of “actor” Charles Paris as created by Simon Brett. DEAD SIDE OF THE MIKE just waiting to be read!
Loved the quote “All I have is trap of a slightly different size and shape.” Now that’s good.
Sorry, I hit the wrong “reply” key—my comment above was not meant to reply to Cimorene’s comment.
No worries, happens to the best of us ^_^
I loved Travis McGee, never mind that I am a Feminist to my toes. Also Dirk Pitt. Also Mike Shayne. Also Jesse Stone. But Will, please take on Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallender series. I think you might really like this author, character, setting, and etc. He isn’t really my type of writer but I loved this series and found it absorbing and very interesting.
Thanks for the advice, Lynne.
I remember reading his books years ago and discovering inter-library loan to fill in the gaps. Sounds silly now but it was a start for me. Imagine my surprise when JDM died before he finished his series; even Travis found his demise when his creator died.