In a message dated 3/13/03 4:05:03 AM Eastern Standard Time,
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca writes:
<<
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 23:52:22 -0500 (EST)
From: William Denton <
buff@pobox.com>
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Maureen Daly, Mrs. William
McGivern
I have an etiquette book by Maureen Daly (THE PERFECT
HOSTESS, 1950),
which is dedicated to Bill, her husband William
McGivern. The other day I
was in the children's section of a library and saw
SEVENTEENTH SUMMER
(1942), a 1965 edition that was the 41st printing of
the book. It says it
had sold over 250,000 copies, which is huge (and the
number would be much
higher now--it's still in print). On the dust jacket it
says,
| Although Maureen Daly is a busy and successful career
woman, she also
| has a full home life with her husband, the well-known
mystery story
| writer, William McGivern, their daughter Megan and
their young son
| Patrick. They divide their time between their country
home in
| southern Pennsylvania and visits to far places and
distant lands.
Daly was born in 1921, and I think she's still alive.
William McGivern
just a bit older, born late in 1918. They met when he
went to an book
signing she was doing. They did two books together,
MENTION MY NAME IN
MOMBASA: THE UNSCHEDULED ADVENTURES OF AN AMERICAN
FAMILY ABROAD (1958),
and THE SEEING (1980). He died in 1984, and she
completed A MATTER OF
HONOR (1984).
I've always liked McGivern's writing, especially THE
BIG HEAT (1953) and
books like ROGUE COP (1954). Good solid stuff. I didn't
know he'd had
such a literary marriage, though, to a very popular
author.
Bill
- -- >>
Daly also, as I recall, edited a mystery anthology the
paperback of which I see all the time in used
bookstores.
I went to a few of the Mystery Writers of America awards
dinners in the early 1980s. One year, McGivern there with his
wife accepting congratulations for his success with SOLDIERS
OF '44. My memory is that he died within the following year
but I could be off by a year. I was very familiar with
McGivern's background in the old Ziff-Davis pulps and it was
warming to see him basking in the glow of deserved praise.
But also I remember being struck by how evident was the
affection between McGivern and Daly, always holding hands and
sneaking private looks and smiles. You don't always see that
in long-married couples but boy they certainly looked like
they had something special.
Richard Moore
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