In a message dated 6/27/03 4:02:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca writes:
<<
> Overall, the novel feels like it was rushed. Too
much was crammed into
too
> small a novel. It originally appeared in a shorter
form in "Cosmopolitan"
and
> JDM novels with that beginning are seldom among his
best.
Not quite sure why that should be, Richard. Although
they printed abridged
versions, "Cosmopolitan" bought the entire novels, not
shortened versions of
them. "Soft Touch", which is extremely highly regarded
by JDM fans, first
appeared in "Cosmopolitan" as "Taint Of The
Tiger."
Al
>>
You caught me in a tossed off last line of a long post that
had not been thought through. More correctly I should have
asked it as a question as I had not reviewed the other
MacDonald novels with that magazine heritage. I did know that
THE END OF THE NIGHT, which came in for lumps earlier this
month, also was originally in Cosmopolitan and made the snap
statement. I can't find my copy of SOFT TOUCH to reread or
refresh my memory. I am not sure that Cosmo buying the whole
novel has any impact on anything. The magazine money from
such publications was quite good and they could be quite
choosy about which novels fit their needs. It seems logical
that a writer aiming for his book to be presented in a
shortened form for big bucks could be influenced by that
possibility. I can't say this was true of MacDonald and I
want to review more carefully the others of his novels to see
if my snap judgement on the quality is off-base. It is widely
thought that Erle Gardner's books suffered during the time he
was earning most of his money through the serialization in
the slicks.
So I withdraw the statement and ask the question.
Richard Moore
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