American action-adventure writer, winner of the Edgar Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America, 1972, and winner of the American Book Award’s mystery competition with his novel “The Green Ripper,” 1980. Best known for creating the character of Travis McGee, an eccentric anti-hero detective who appeared in 21 mystery novels, his prolific career spanned more than 40 years. He wrote 77 books and 500 short stories.
John’s dad was a strong-willed workaholic who rose from humble origins to become a top executive at a firearms company in Utica, New York. At age 12, the boy suffered a near-fatal attack of mastoiditis and scarlet fever which confined him to bed for many months. It was during this time he discovered the great joy of reading and went through huge quantities of books.
After graduating from the Utica Free Academy in 1933, MacDonald attended the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and then transferred to the Syracuse University where he earned a B.S. in Business Administration in January 1938. Later he received a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Business, June 1939.
After taking several jobs he didn’t like, in June 1940 he accepted a lieutenant’s commission in the U.S. Army Reserve and was assigned to active duty at the Rochester Ordnance District in Rochester, New York. In June 1943 he was assigned to the China-Burma-India Theater Headquarters in New Delhi and was later recruited overseas by the OSS (CIA forerunner) and appointed commander of the Branch Establishment of Detachment 404 in Colombo, Ceylon. In wartime the outgoing mail was heavily censored and he found it difficult to write enough in letters he sent his wife, Dorothy. One time he wrote her a short story instead of a letter. She liked it, typed it up and sent it to “Story Magazine.” It appeared in the July-August 1946 issue. When he found out they paid $25 for it, he felt like an impostor, trying to be something he wasn’t. Then he thought maybe he could actually be a writer. In the first four months after being discharged he wrote 800,000 words and from then on, never stopped writing.
His work began to sell to the pulp magazines such as “Detective Tales, ” “Dime Detective”, “Black Mask” “Doc Savage” and “The Shadow” as well as “Esquire,” “Cosmopolitan,” and “Liberty.” During these years, 1947 to 1952, he honed his skills by writing two Westerns, at least 21 shorts stories and well over 40 ventures into science fiction. In 1950, his first book was published, “The Brass Cupcake.” He moved his wife and son to Texas, then back to upstate New York, then Mexico and finally to Florida where he has lived since.
Beginning in 1964, with “The Deep Blue Goodbye,” his character McGee came to life, solving crimes and indulging his creator’s dislike for many of the trends and customs in contemporary life. Throughout the McGee mysteries and other novels, MacDonald’s voice was one of a social historian, particularly of the Southern coast. The last McGee book, published in 1985, was “The Lonely Silver Rain.” In later years, the non-McGee novels tackled corporate swindles and greed, as in the 1977 “Condominium,” about corporations grabbing land in Florida. Another novel, “One More Sunday,” 1984, is about spiritually bankrupt evangelical church leaders who raise funds through TV and computers.
MacDonald married Dorothy Prentiss, also a Syracuse graduate, in 1938. A disciplined writer, he kept regular hours, working from 8:30 AM to 6 PM, producing from 900 to 9,000 words a day. He put off writing only to travel with his wife or to go fishing. A lover of boats, like McGee, MacDonald also enjoyed chess, poker and was once a semi-pro bridge player.
Hospitalized since September 1986, he died on 28 December 1986 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin of complications following heart by-pass surgery.
Link to Wikipedia biography