In his survey
of American literature Anthony Burgess mentions
MacDonald as a mystery writer who "lavishes a great deal of
fine writing
on the mystery genre." From Burgess this is high
praise.
As I remember
MacDonald came back from the war (WWII) with the
desire to be a writer, but not sure if he could hack it. He
took
6 months and 500,000 words and then looked over what he had
and decided
that he could do it for a living. At some point, early on, an
editor
suggested that a series character would be a good idea.
MacDonald
said that he wrote 3 (or 4) McGee novels without sending them
in.
Again, he wanted to see if it worked.
The editor
/publisher liked it. And that was that.
Most of the
above is from an interview that I read a very long
time ago. Probably one of the few that he gave. It's the best
I can
remember of the thing after maybe 25 years.
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