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Title: Ross Macdonald : A Biography by Tom Nolan ISBN: 1-890208-54-X Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.9 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: ross mcdonald - a biography
Comment: I am an avid reader of mystery novels from the time I was a little girl - being the only girl in my group of friends to read mystery. I loved Lew Archer stories but was not really knowledgeable about the author. When I came across the book in the library, I checked it out and thoroughly enjoyed the book. His life was so wonderful yet pitifully sad. I thought Tom Nolan did a great job doing his research and his talent for writing made the book one that I could not put down until I had completely finished it. I can identify with some of the things McDonald's daughter went through. Her life hit a nerve and I believe Tom Nolan did an excellent job describing that part. I am an aspiring writer myself and I was amazed at the time and effort Tom put into this book. Hats off to him and I will be looking to read other books by him. The photograph of the author is very familiar to me. I feel that I may have known him. Strange.
Rating: 5
Summary: THE ULTIMATE LITERARY BIOGRAPHY
Comment: I am a mystery author who is attemping to continue in the literary tradition of Hammett/Chandler/Macdonald. While taking a break between my first book (now in current release and recently sold to a Japanese publisher for translation/publication) and my second book (now in preproduction), I read Tom Nolan's ROSS MACDONALD. Ross Macdonald is perhaps the mystery writer who has had the strongest influence upon my writing, and I spent approximately a month closely reading this overwhelming book. Mr. Nolan spent the better part of two decades researching this bigraphy, and his dedicated efforts clearly show in this work. Nolan traces Macdonald's early life, his education, his military career, his sometimes stormy relationship with his wife Margaret Millar, his years of work at mastering his craft, his family troubles, his eventual fame, his societal and political interests, his dedication to certain causes, and the tragically early end to his life. In short, this book tells you everything you ever wanted to know about Macdonald but didn't know enough to ask. While reading this book, I made mental notes of a some minor details I desired further elaboration on. Fortunately, several months later, I found myself seated next to Tom Nolan at the LA TIMES Festival of Books. It was a pleasure to meet such a kind and generous man. Mr. Nolan is as fine a gentleman as he is a writer, and he had answers to all the questions I still had about the great author we both admire. ROSS MACDONALD is an extraordinarily well-researched work written by a man with a thorough mastery of his material. I have never read a better literary biography.
Rating: 5
Summary: Exceptional!
Comment: A good biography defines for the reader the complete subject. An exceptional biography not only defines the subject but offers insights and generates feeling for the subject. Nolan has done a truly masterful job of offering us Kenneth Millar, without ever once inflicting any kind of authorial (hence subjective) opinions on the material.
As someone who, to this day, can remember many of Millar/Macdonald's exquisitely crafted lines and scenes, and who loved both his work and that of his wife Margaret Millar, it was a wonderful experience to read this book. Since they were so integral to each other's lives, author Nolan has wisely, and quite fully, included Margaret in this biography in order to give us a full perspective on their life together--a pair of (ultimately) enormously successful writers who happened to be married.
Margaret comes across as a clever, difficult, quite damaged woman, often hiding behind throwaway quips and quite caustic remarks; not at all sociable, undeniably gifted, and possessed of a humor that was frequently cruel.
Millar, on the other hand, is shown to be, first and foremost, a generous, thoughtful, kind, and immensely gifted man with a fine, fine mind. His long struggle to achieve the success he so richly deserved is, in some ways, very contemporary; in other ways, it's reflective of the times (the late 40s through the late 70s).
Rich, too, in physical detail, what I particularly liked was Nolan's comprehension of Millar's sense of being an alien in America. Despite his American birth, having grown up in Canada, Millar brought to his life and to his work a kind of interior chill that is so very much a part of Canadian life. A very tricky thing to describe, yet Nolan does a masterful job of highlighting the difference in sensibilities between Canadians and Americans. It's no small achievement. We Canadians are not Americans, but articulating why--and defining the cultural niceties--can be exceedingly difficult.
To learn that a mind as fine as Millar's is destroyed, ultimately, by Alzheimer's is achingly painful to read. To "see" the man begin to falter and then fail is harrowing and, finally, heartbreaking. Millar redefined the mystery genre, bringing it forward into the mainstream of literature with consummate skill and a peerless talent. Nolan does his subject proud. This is a book that would, undoubtedly, have pleased the shy and unpretentious Millar enormously.
Read every Ross Macdonald book you can find. And then read this splendid biography.
My highest recommendation.
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Title: Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Mysteries by Ross Macdonald, Tom Nolan ISBN: 1885941528 Publisher: Crippen & Landru, Publishers Pub. Date: 01 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Galton Case (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Ross Macdonald ISBN: 0679768645 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 26 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Wycherly Woman (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Ross Macdonald ISBN: 0375701443 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Sleeping Beauty by Ross Macdonald ISBN: 0375708669 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 05 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald ISBN: 037570146X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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