Travis McGee
Encyclopedia
Travis McGee is a fictional character
, created by prolific American
mystery writer John D. MacDonald
. Unlike most detectives in crime fiction, McGee is neither a police officer nor a licensed private investigator
; instead, he is a self-described "salvage
consultant
" who recovers others' property for a fee. McGee appeared in 21 novels, from The Deep Blue Good-by
in 1964 to The Lonely Silver Rain
in 1984. In 1980, the McGee novel The Green Ripper
won the National Book Award
.
dubbed The Busted Flush (after the poker
hand, in memory of the game enabling him to win it), docked at Slip F-18 at Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
. A self-described "beach bum" who takes his retirement "in installments", he prefers to take on new cases only when the spare cash (besides a reserve fund) in a hidden safe in the Flush runs low. McGee also owns a custom Rolls-Royce
that had been converted into a pickup truck
long before he bought it, and painted "a horrid electric blue
" by the same hand that did the conversion. McGee named it Miss Agnes, after one of his elementary school teachers whose hair was the same shade.
McGee's business card reads Salvage Consultant, and most business comes by word of mouth. His clients are usually people who have been deprived of something important and/or valuable (typically by unscrupulous or illegal means) and have no way to regain it lawfully. McGee's usual fee is half the value of the item (if recovered) with McGee risking expenses, and those who object to such a seemingly high fee are reminded that getting back half of something is better than nothing at all. Although the missing items are often tangible (e.g., rare stamps, jewels, etc.), in several books McGee is asked to locate a missing person; in one, the stolen property is a client's reputation. In several instances, he shows a marked propensity to exact revenge, usually for the ill-treatment or death of one of his few real friends.
Physically, McGee is a tall, tanned, sandy-haired man with pale grey eyes. Several books hint (or explicitly state) that he is a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War
. However, later books are less precise about exactly when he served
. In The Green Ripper
, one of the later novels, there are implications that his military service was during the Vietnam War rather than Korea. In The Lonely Silver Rain
he visits a bank safe-deposit box in which he keeps a few precious keepsakes including photos of his father, mother, and brother, and mentions that the box also contains his Silver Star
, Purple Heart
, and honorable discharge certificate, all awarded by the U.S. Army to "Sergeant McGee". He was a stand-out college football
player (at tight end) but says in A Deadly Shade of Gold that he never played professional football due to a knee injury. However, in The Turquoise Lament
he admits to a sports-trivia fan that he played professional football for a couple of seasons before his knees were wrecked in a tackle by an opponent from the Detroit Lions
.
Despite his age, he retains the quickness and agility of a professional athlete. He stands 6'4" (1.95 m) tall and, although deceptively unimposing at his "fighting weight" of 205 lbs. (93 kg), he is much stronger than he looks, with thick wrists and long arms; occasionally, a more perspicacious adversary notes these features when deciding whether to tangle with him. McGee purposely cultivates an image of being uncoordinated, shambling, and clumsy, but has superb reflexes and muscle memory. He has a 33-inch waist, wears a size 46 long jacket, and a shirt with a 17½" neck and 34" arms. McGee often discusses his fitness regimen, usually in terms of regaining his fitness after a lazy period: swimming and sprinting are frequently mentioned. At one time he was a pipe smoker, but eventually gave it up in order to maintain his physical fitness. As a martial art strategy, he often covers his face and blocks punches with his arms and elbows to lull and tire his opponent while studying that opponent's fighting style. In the final novel, McGee is described as practicing the Chinese art of T'ai chi ch'uan.
McGee's early life and family are deliberately left undeveloped; among the few explicit mentions of family are a memory of attending a Chicago parade with his father as a boy, and a brother with whom he planned to go into business after his military service. The brother was apparently swindled out of his savings in a scam involving a woman and a male accomplice and committed suicide; it is strongly hinted that Travis subsequently killed the woman and her partner. McGee's ethnicity is Irish-American; his father's first name is never given, but his mother's maiden name is given as Mary Catherine Devlin.
While McGee notes in Free Fall in Crimson (1981) he has "cut a wide swath through a wall of female flesh", he is honest and cynical enough to understand what this says about himself. This is a part of his introspective nature that frequently appears throughout the series, with observations about society around him, with particular notice paid to the changing Florida environment. McGee's cynical image of himself, some variation of which appears in every book in the series, is as a knight in rusty armor with a broken lance and swaybacked steed, fighting for what he fears are outdated or unrealistic ideals. In his romantic view of the world, he bears a resemblance to Robert B. Parker
's Spenser.
However, unlike other fictional detectives such as Raymond Chandler
's jaded and world-weary Philip Marlowe
, McGee clings to what is important to him: his senses of honor, obligation, and outrage. In a classic commentary in Bright Orange for the Shroud, McGee muses,
.
McGee does have a sidekick of sorts, in his best friend Meyer, an internationally known and respected economist who lives on a cabin cruiser of his own near McGee's at Bahia Mar, the John Maynard Keynes
, and later, after the Keynes is blown up, aboard its replacement, the Thorstein Veblen
. There has been some confusion as to whether "Meyer" is a given name or surname, but it's clear in The Green Ripper when McGee and Meyer are in the hotel room with the two federal agents. They refer to him twice as Dr. Meyer and at the second, he says, "Just Meyer, please." Both Meyer's boats are jammed full of books and treatises, ranging far beyond simple economic theory. For instance, Meyer is a chess aficionado and amateur psychologist. Meyer serves as McGee's anchor when McGee's own inner compass seems to be skewed, as well as providing the formal education that the street-smart McGee lacks. Meyer has been known to participate in McGee's campaigns on occasion and has come close to being killed more than once as a result. His cover is usually some sort of academic, though at times he has also played a stockbroker or an entomologist.
Some world-weariness does eventually creep into McGee's character, perhaps because the 1960s Florida in which he originated no longer exists. The only direct indications of his age ever given are comments that he had served in the Korean War, and until the 1980s he seems ageless. He does at one point refer to having a "birthday ending in zero", which could mean that he was born in 1930. But as the story progresses, minor recurring characters began to drop away and it becomes apparent that McGee himself is getting older, along with his creator. In later novels such as The Green Ripper and Free Fall in Crimson, there is a sense of desperation that the violence in the world is too senseless to be explained and will never end. Much of that dissipates with the ending of The Lonely Silver Rain, which became the final volume when MacDonald died in 1986. (Reports of another final McGee novel, possibly narrated by Meyer, titled A Black Border for McGee and to be published posthumously, have never been confirmed.)
he decided that name had too many negative connotations. He was searching for a first name for McGee when a friend suggested that he look at the names of the many Air Force
bases in California
. MacDonald's attention was caught by Travis Air Force Base
in Fairfield
, and so he named his character Travis.
Beginning with The Deep Blue Good-By, released in March 1964, each of the twenty-one novels featuring Travis McGee has a title that incorporates a color. The first three books in the Travis McGee series were published in quick succession, at the rate of one a month, a highly unusual publishing strategy. According to MacDonald, he had earlier written an introductory novel about McGee that he burned as being unsatisfactory.
McGee has been called the first great modern Florida adventurer, preceding characters and situations that appeared in novels by authors such as Elmore Leonard
, Carl Hiaasen
, Tim Dorsey
, James W. Hall, and Les Standiford
. Hiaasen specifically acknowledged his debt in an introduction he wrote for a new edition of The Deep Blue Good-By in 1994, commenting that even though MacDonald was now eight years gone, he believed McGee was still around, probably sipping gin
on the deck of the Busted Flush and pondering whatever it was that Florida had become or was becoming. Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett
expressed similar sentiments in the lyrics of the song "Incommunicado". In Salem's Lot by Stephen King, Constable Parkins Gillespie berates author Ben Mears' writing. Gillespie tells him to write "Like the guy who writes those Travis McGee stories".
Several of the science fiction
novels and stories of author Spider Robinson
also contain references to Travis McGee. McGee has also been linked to the Wold Newton family
described in Phillip Jose Farmer's Tarzan Alive, and included on a genealogical chart in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life
.
The U.S. Library of Congress
's "Center for the Book
" commissioned a short work by MacDonald. The resulting essay, "Reading for Survival", is a conversation between McGee and Meyer on the importance of reading. The 26-page essay was released in a limited edition of 5,000 copies and was available for a small contribution to the Center for the Book.
In addition, the 1966 MacDonald novel The Last One Left
carries the author's inscription, "I dedicate this novel to TRAVIS McGEE, who lent invaluable support and encouragement." With much of the action occurring in the boat cruising world of southeastern Florida, it is similar to some of the McGee stories. The book also mentions the Munequita, a small runabout that McGee later buys in Pale Gray for Guilt.
played McGee in Darker Than Amber
(1970), and Sam Elliott
played him in the television movie
of The Empty Copper Sea
, titled Travis McGee (1983). Inexplicably, the latter film locates McGee in California — eliminating the Florida locales central to the novels. In addition, Elliott kept his trademark brushy mustache, thoroughly distancing himself from the clean-shaven, brush cut look McGee maintains in the books.
In 1967, author MacDonald refused permission for a television series about Travis McGee and his cases, feeling people would stop reading the novels were Travis McGee regularly on television. Comedian Dan Rowan, a friend of MacDonald's, had expressed interest in playing the role of Travis McGee, but nothing ever materialized.
Actor Darren McGavin
provided the voice of Travis McGee in the majority of the audio book versions of the novels.
According to the Internet Movie Database
, a film version of The Deep Blue Good-by
, directed by Oliver Stone
with Leonardo DiCaprio
as Travis McGee, was in development with a tentative release date of 2011 or 2012. In April 2010, it was announced that the film's title was changed to Travis McGee. In April 2011, it was announced that Paul Greengrass
was interested in directing the film.
decided to institute a series of literary landmark plaques analogous to historic landmark markers, the first to be installed was at Slip F18 in Bahia Mar, the anchorage of the Busted Flush. After the remodeling of the Bahia Mar Yachting Center in 2003 to replace fixed docks with floating docks, there no longer existed a Slip F18. The plaque was remounted on a movable wooden base, which is presently located inside the marina Dockmaster's Office.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
, created by prolific American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mystery writer John D. MacDonald
John D. MacDonald
John Dann MacDonald was an American crime and suspense novelist and short story writer.MacDonald was a prolific author of crime and suspense novels, many of them set in his adopted home of Florida...
. Unlike most detectives in crime fiction, McGee is neither a police officer nor a licensed private investigator
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
; instead, he is a self-described "salvage
Salvage
Salvage means 'rescue' and as such may refer to:* Marine salvage, the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo and sometimes the crew from peril* Salvage tug, a type of tugboat used to rescue or salvage ships which are in distress or in danger of sinking...
consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
" who recovers others' property for a fee. McGee appeared in 21 novels, from The Deep Blue Good-by
The Deep Blue Good-by
The Deep Blue Good-by is the first of 21 novels in the Travis McGee series by American author John D. MacDonald. Commissioned in 1964 by Fawcett Publications editor Knox Burger, the book establishes for the series an investigative protagonist in a residential Florida base—as well as a...
in 1964 to The Lonely Silver Rain
The Lonely Silver Rain
The Lonely Silver Rain is the 21st and final novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The work was published a year prior to the author's death, and was not intentionally the end of the series...
in 1984. In 1980, the McGee novel The Green Ripper
The Green Ripper
The Green Ripper is the eighteenth of 21 Travis McGee novels written by John D. McDonald. It won the National Book Award for the category of mystery in 1980, and was the first and only book in that category to receive the award. The plot is centered on revenge against a secretive, terrorist cult...
won the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
.
Profile
Travis McGee lives on a custom-made 52-foot barge-type houseboatHouseboat
A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a human dwelling. Some houseboats are not motorized, because they are usually moored, kept stationary at a fixed point and often tethered to land to provide utilities...
dubbed The Busted Flush (after the poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
hand, in memory of the game enabling him to win it), docked at Slip F-18 at Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, on the Atlantic coast. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,521. It is a principal city of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010...
. A self-described "beach bum" who takes his retirement "in installments", he prefers to take on new cases only when the spare cash (besides a reserve fund) in a hidden safe in the Flush runs low. McGee also owns a custom Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (car)
This a list of Rolls-Royce motor cars and includes vehicles produced by:*Rolls-Royce Limited *Rolls-Royce Motors , which was owned by Vickers between 1980 and 1998, and after that by Volkswagen...
that had been converted into a pickup truck
Pickup truck
A pickup truck is a light motor vehicle with an open-top rear cargo area .-Definition:...
long before he bought it, and painted "a horrid electric blue
Electric blue
Electric blue is a very bright color reminiscent of a spark, named after the color of an argon sign. It is very similar to cyan.Additionally, the term may refer to:-Biology:...
" by the same hand that did the conversion. McGee named it Miss Agnes, after one of his elementary school teachers whose hair was the same shade.
McGee's business card reads Salvage Consultant, and most business comes by word of mouth. His clients are usually people who have been deprived of something important and/or valuable (typically by unscrupulous or illegal means) and have no way to regain it lawfully. McGee's usual fee is half the value of the item (if recovered) with McGee risking expenses, and those who object to such a seemingly high fee are reminded that getting back half of something is better than nothing at all. Although the missing items are often tangible (e.g., rare stamps, jewels, etc.), in several books McGee is asked to locate a missing person; in one, the stolen property is a client's reputation. In several instances, he shows a marked propensity to exact revenge, usually for the ill-treatment or death of one of his few real friends.
Physically, McGee is a tall, tanned, sandy-haired man with pale grey eyes. Several books hint (or explicitly state) that he is a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. However, later books are less precise about exactly when he served
Floating timeline
A Floating timeline is a device used in fiction, particularly in comics and animation, to explain why characters age little or not at all over a period of time - despite real-world markers like notable events, people and technology appearing in the works and correlating with the real world.A...
. In The Green Ripper
The Green Ripper
The Green Ripper is the eighteenth of 21 Travis McGee novels written by John D. McDonald. It won the National Book Award for the category of mystery in 1980, and was the first and only book in that category to receive the award. The plot is centered on revenge against a secretive, terrorist cult...
, one of the later novels, there are implications that his military service was during the Vietnam War rather than Korea. In The Lonely Silver Rain
The Lonely Silver Rain
The Lonely Silver Rain is the 21st and final novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The work was published a year prior to the author's death, and was not intentionally the end of the series...
he visits a bank safe-deposit box in which he keeps a few precious keepsakes including photos of his father, mother, and brother, and mentions that the box also contains his Silver Star
Silver Star
The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....
, Purple Heart
Purple Heart
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York...
, and honorable discharge certificate, all awarded by the U.S. Army to "Sergeant McGee". He was a stand-out college football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player (at tight end) but says in A Deadly Shade of Gold that he never played professional football due to a knee injury. However, in The Turquoise Lament
The Turquoise Lament
The Turquoise Lament is the fifteenth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. It focuses on McGee's involvement with an old acquaintance, Pidge, who believes her husband Howie Brindle is trying to kill her to acquire her considerable inheritance. It takes place primarily in Hawaii...
he admits to a sports-trivia fan that he played professional football for a couple of seasons before his knees were wrecked in a tackle by an opponent from the Detroit Lions
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League , and play their home games at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit.Originally based in Portsmouth, Ohio and...
.
Despite his age, he retains the quickness and agility of a professional athlete. He stands 6'4" (1.95 m) tall and, although deceptively unimposing at his "fighting weight" of 205 lbs. (93 kg), he is much stronger than he looks, with thick wrists and long arms; occasionally, a more perspicacious adversary notes these features when deciding whether to tangle with him. McGee purposely cultivates an image of being uncoordinated, shambling, and clumsy, but has superb reflexes and muscle memory. He has a 33-inch waist, wears a size 46 long jacket, and a shirt with a 17½" neck and 34" arms. McGee often discusses his fitness regimen, usually in terms of regaining his fitness after a lazy period: swimming and sprinting are frequently mentioned. At one time he was a pipe smoker, but eventually gave it up in order to maintain his physical fitness. As a martial art strategy, he often covers his face and blocks punches with his arms and elbows to lull and tire his opponent while studying that opponent's fighting style. In the final novel, McGee is described as practicing the Chinese art of T'ai chi ch'uan.
McGee's early life and family are deliberately left undeveloped; among the few explicit mentions of family are a memory of attending a Chicago parade with his father as a boy, and a brother with whom he planned to go into business after his military service. The brother was apparently swindled out of his savings in a scam involving a woman and a male accomplice and committed suicide; it is strongly hinted that Travis subsequently killed the woman and her partner. McGee's ethnicity is Irish-American; his father's first name is never given, but his mother's maiden name is given as Mary Catherine Devlin.
While McGee notes in Free Fall in Crimson (1981) he has "cut a wide swath through a wall of female flesh", he is honest and cynical enough to understand what this says about himself. This is a part of his introspective nature that frequently appears throughout the series, with observations about society around him, with particular notice paid to the changing Florida environment. McGee's cynical image of himself, some variation of which appears in every book in the series, is as a knight in rusty armor with a broken lance and swaybacked steed, fighting for what he fears are outdated or unrealistic ideals. In his romantic view of the world, he bears a resemblance to Robert B. Parker
Robert B. Parker
Robert Brown Parker was an American crime writer. His most famous works were the novels about the private detective Spenser. ABC television network developed the television series Spenser: For Hire based on the character in the late 1980s; a series of TV movies based on the character were also...
's Spenser.
However, unlike other fictional detectives such as Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
's jaded and world-weary Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler in a series of novels including The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Marlowe first appeared under that name in The Big Sleep published in 1939...
, McGee clings to what is important to him: his senses of honor, obligation, and outrage. In a classic commentary in Bright Orange for the Shroud, McGee muses,
This was in a paperback originally published in 1965 when the general public was still not conversant with the concept of environmentalism
"Now, of course, having failed in every attempt to subdue the GladesEvergladesThe Everglades are subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large watershed. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee...
by frontal attack, we are slowly killing it off by tapping the River of GrassEvergladesThe Everglades are subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large watershed. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee...
. In the questionable name of progress, the state in its vast wisdom lets every two-bit developer divert the flow into drag-lined canals that give him 'waterfront' lots to sell. As far north as Corkscrew SwampCorkscrew Swamp SanctuaryCorkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is a National Audubon Society sanctuary located in southwest Florida, north of Naples, Florida and east of Bonita Springs, in the United States. The sanctuary was established to protect one of the largest remaining stands of Bald Cypress and Pond Cypress Corkscrew Swamp...
, virgin stands of ancient bald cypress are dying. All the area north of CopelandCopeland, FloridaCopeland is an unincorporated community located in eastern Collier County, Florida, United States. It is at the junction of State Road 29 and Janes Memorial Scenic Drive . Copeland lies along the western border of the Big Cypress National Preserve, and wedged beside the Fakahatchee Strand...
had been logged out, and will never come back. As the glades dry, the big fires come with increasing frequency. The ecology is changing with egretEgretAn egret is any of several herons, most of which are white or buff, and several of which develop fine plumes during the breeding season. Many egrets are members of the genera Egretta or Ardea which contain other species named as herons rather than egrets...
colonies dwindling, mulletMullet (fish)The mullets or grey mullets are a family and order of ray-finned fish found worldwide in coastal temperate and tropical waters, and in some species in fresh water. Mullets have served as an important source of food in Mediterranean Europe since Roman times...
getting scarce, mangroveMangroveMangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
dying of new diseases born of dryness."
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
.
McGee does have a sidekick of sorts, in his best friend Meyer, an internationally known and respected economist who lives on a cabin cruiser of his own near McGee's at Bahia Mar, the John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...
, and later, after the Keynes is blown up, aboard its replacement, the Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist, and a leader of the so-called institutional economics movement...
. There has been some confusion as to whether "Meyer" is a given name or surname, but it's clear in The Green Ripper when McGee and Meyer are in the hotel room with the two federal agents. They refer to him twice as Dr. Meyer and at the second, he says, "Just Meyer, please." Both Meyer's boats are jammed full of books and treatises, ranging far beyond simple economic theory. For instance, Meyer is a chess aficionado and amateur psychologist. Meyer serves as McGee's anchor when McGee's own inner compass seems to be skewed, as well as providing the formal education that the street-smart McGee lacks. Meyer has been known to participate in McGee's campaigns on occasion and has come close to being killed more than once as a result. His cover is usually some sort of academic, though at times he has also played a stockbroker or an entomologist.
Some world-weariness does eventually creep into McGee's character, perhaps because the 1960s Florida in which he originated no longer exists. The only direct indications of his age ever given are comments that he had served in the Korean War, and until the 1980s he seems ageless. He does at one point refer to having a "birthday ending in zero", which could mean that he was born in 1930. But as the story progresses, minor recurring characters began to drop away and it becomes apparent that McGee himself is getting older, along with his creator. In later novels such as The Green Ripper and Free Fall in Crimson, there is a sense of desperation that the violence in the world is too senseless to be explained and will never end. Much of that dissipates with the ending of The Lonely Silver Rain, which became the final volume when MacDonald died in 1986. (Reports of another final McGee novel, possibly narrated by Meyer, titled A Black Border for McGee and to be published posthumously, have never been confirmed.)
About the Travis McGee novels
When MacDonald created the character, he was to be called Dallas McGee, after the city. According to MacDonald, he had originally named the character Dallas McGee, but after the Kennedy assassinationJohn F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
he decided that name had too many negative connotations. He was searching for a first name for McGee when a friend suggested that he look at the names of the many Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
bases in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. MacDonald's attention was caught by Travis Air Force Base
Travis Air Force Base
Travis Air Force Base is a United States Air Force air base under the operational control of the Air Mobility Command , located three miles east of the central business district of Fairfield, in Solano County, California, United States. The base is named for Brigadier General Robert F...
in Fairfield
Fairfield, California
Fairfield is a city located in Solano County in Northern California, USA. It is generally considered the midpoint between the cities of San Francisco and Sacramento, approximately from the city center of both cities, approximately from the city center of Oakland, less than from Napa Valley, 18...
, and so he named his character Travis.
Beginning with The Deep Blue Good-By, released in March 1964, each of the twenty-one novels featuring Travis McGee has a title that incorporates a color. The first three books in the Travis McGee series were published in quick succession, at the rate of one a month, a highly unusual publishing strategy. According to MacDonald, he had earlier written an introductory novel about McGee that he burned as being unsatisfactory.
McGee has been called the first great modern Florida adventurer, preceding characters and situations that appeared in novels by authors such as Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard
Elmore John Leonard Jr. , better known as Elmore Leonard, is an American novelist and screenwriter. His earliest published novels in the 1950s were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures.Among his...
, Carl Hiaasen
Carl Hiaasen
Carl Hiaasen is an American journalist, columnist and novelist.- Early years :Born in 1953 and raised in Plantation, Florida, of Norwegian heritage, Hiaasen was the first of four children and the son of a lawyer, Kermit Odel, and teacher, Patricia...
, Tim Dorsey
Tim Dorsey
Tim Dorsey is an American novelist. His writing style is frequently compared to those of Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen . Dorsey's books are crime capers in the Florida style pioneered by John D. MacDonald.-Biography:Dorsey was born in Indiana but moved to Florida at an early age...
, James W. Hall, and Les Standiford
Les Standiford
Les Standiford is a historian and author and has since 1985 been the Director of the Florida International University Creative Writing Program. Although his most recent works have been narrative non-fiction historical pieces in the style of David McCulloch, his John Deal novels set him firmly in ...
. Hiaasen specifically acknowledged his debt in an introduction he wrote for a new edition of The Deep Blue Good-By in 1994, commenting that even though MacDonald was now eight years gone, he believed McGee was still around, probably sipping gin
Gin
Gin is a spirit which derives its predominant flavour from juniper berries . Although several different styles of gin have existed since its origins, it is broadly differentiated into two basic legal categories...
on the deck of the Busted Flush and pondering whatever it was that Florida had become or was becoming. Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett
Jimmy Buffett
James William "Jimmy" Buffett is a singer-songwriter, author, entrepreneur, and film producer. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett's musical hits include "Margaritaville" , and "Come Monday"...
expressed similar sentiments in the lyrics of the song "Incommunicado". In Salem's Lot by Stephen King, Constable Parkins Gillespie berates author Ben Mears' writing. Gillespie tells him to write "Like the guy who writes those Travis McGee stories".
Several of the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novels and stories of author Spider Robinson
Spider Robinson
Spider Robinson is an American-born Canadian Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction author.- Biography :Born in the Bronx, New York City, Robinson attended Catholic high school, spending his junior year in a seminary, followed by two years in a Catholic college, and five years at the State...
also contain references to Travis McGee. McGee has also been linked to the Wold Newton family
Wold Newton family
The Wold Newton family is a literary concept derived from a form of crossover fiction developed by the science fiction writer Philip José Farmer...
described in Phillip Jose Farmer's Tarzan Alive, and included on a genealogical chart in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life
Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life
Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life is a fictional biography by Philip José Farmer about pulp fiction hero Doc Savage.The book is written with the assumption that Doc Savage was a real person. Kenneth Robeson, the author of the Doc Savage novels, is portrayed as writing fictionalized memoirs of the...
.
The U.S. Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
's "Center for the Book
Center for the Book
The Center for the Book was founded in 1977 by Daniel J. Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, in order to use the Library of Congress to promote literacy, libraries, and reading in general, as well as an understanding of the history and heritage of American literature...
" commissioned a short work by MacDonald. The resulting essay, "Reading for Survival", is a conversation between McGee and Meyer on the importance of reading. The 26-page essay was released in a limited edition of 5,000 copies and was available for a small contribution to the Center for the Book.
Novels
- The Deep Blue Good-byThe Deep Blue Good-byThe Deep Blue Good-by is the first of 21 novels in the Travis McGee series by American author John D. MacDonald. Commissioned in 1964 by Fawcett Publications editor Knox Burger, the book establishes for the series an investigative protagonist in a residential Florida base—as well as a...
(1964) - Nightmare in PinkNightmare in PinkNightmare in Pink is the second novel in the Travis McGee series written by John D. McDonald. In it, McGee is asked by a friend from his military days to help his sister Nina in the investigation of her fiance's death and the large sum of money involved. The book's title is a reference to the...
(1964) - A Purple Place for DyingA Purple Place for DyingA Purple Place for Dying is the third novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald.-Plot summary:McGee is drawn away from his usual haunt of Florida by a job offer from Mona Yeoman, who suspects that her estranged husband has stolen from her considerable trust fund. Before the...
(1964) - The Quick Red FoxThe Quick Red FoxThe Quick Red Fox is the fourth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. In it, McGee is hired to aid a fictitious Hollywood star named Lysa Dean who is being blackmailed with revealing photographs....
(1964) - A Deadly Shade of GoldA Deadly Shade of GoldA Deadly Shade of Gold is the fifth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The plot revolves around a solid gold Aztec statute, and takes McGee from his home of Florida to Mexico and Los Angeles....
(1965) - Bright Orange for the ShroudBright Orange for the ShroudBright Orange for the Shroud is a sixth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The plot follows McGee as he attempts to salvage the money of friend Arthur Wilkinson after the man is defrauded in a semi-legal confidence scheme involving a land deal...
(1965) - Darker than AmberDarker than AmberDarker than Amber is the seventh novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The plot begins with McGee and his close friend Meyer are fishing underneath a bridge and a young woman, bound and weighted, is thrown over the bridge. It was also adapted in to a 1970 film of the same name....
(1966) - One Fearful Yellow EyeOne Fearful Yellow EyeOne Fearful Yellow Eye is the eighth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The plot revolves around McGee's attempts to aid his longtime friend Glory Doyle in her quest to uncover the truth about her late husband and the blackmail which made over half a million dollars of his...
(1966) - Pale Gray for GuiltPale Gray for GuiltPale Gray for Guilt is the ninth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The plot revolves around McGee's investigation in to the death of his close friend Tush Bannon, who he suspects has been murdered because of his refusal to sell his waterfront property to developers...
(1968) - The Girl in the Plain Brown WrapperThe Girl in the Plain Brown WrapperThe Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper is the tenth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The plot focuses on McGee's investigation of a beautiful young woman who is mysteriously losing her mind without any apparent physical or mental disease. Along the way, he discovers various...
(1968) - Dress Her in IndigoDress Her in IndigoDress Her in Indigo is the eleventh novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald.-Plot synopsis:McGee investigates what happened to a young woman after she disappears into the expatriate subculture of hippies and drug addicts in Mexico, and is found dead....
(1969) - The Long Lavender LookThe Long Lavender LookThe Long Lavender Look is the twelfth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. After the preceding book, Dress Her in Indigo, which was largely set in Mexico, The Long Lavender Look not only returns to McGee's usual haunt of Florida, but is almost entirely set in one tiny town deep...
(1970) - A Tan and Sandy SilenceA Tan and Sandy SilenceA Tan and Sandy Silence is the thirteenth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The plot begins with Harry Broll, husband of McGee's longtime friend Mary, shows up at his houseboat The Busted Flush with a gun, threatening McGee and accusing him of hiding Mary aboard. The rest of...
(1971) - The Scarlet RuseThe Scarlet RuseThe Scarlet Ruse is the fourteenth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The plot revolves around McGee's investigation in to some extremely valuable rare postage stamps which have been stolen....
(1972) - The Turquoise LamentThe Turquoise LamentThe Turquoise Lament is the fifteenth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. It focuses on McGee's involvement with an old acquaintance, Pidge, who believes her husband Howie Brindle is trying to kill her to acquire her considerable inheritance. It takes place primarily in Hawaii...
(1973) - The Dreadful Lemon SkyThe Dreadful Lemon SkyThe Dreadful Lemon Sky is the sixteenth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. It is the 87th novel in The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time as compiled by the Mystery Writers of America .-Plot:Carrie, an old friend of the hero, Travis McGee, arrives at his houseboat, the Busted Flush...
(1974) - The Empty Copper SeaThe Empty Copper SeaThe Empty Copper Sea is the seventeenth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. In it, McGee looks into the apparent drowning of Hub Lawless in a boating accident. His $2 million insurance policy leads some to believe he has faked his death.The title of the book is taken from a...
(1978) - The Green RipperThe Green RipperThe Green Ripper is the eighteenth of 21 Travis McGee novels written by John D. McDonald. It won the National Book Award for the category of mystery in 1980, and was the first and only book in that category to receive the award. The plot is centered on revenge against a secretive, terrorist cult...
(1979) - Free Fall in CrimsonFree Fall in CrimsonFree Fall in Crimson is the nineteenth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. In the plot McGee sets out to investigate the death of an ailing millionaire, and encounters a motorcycle gang, pornographic movie-makers, and balloonists. The book also revives the character of Lysa Dean...
(1981) - Cinnamon SkinCinnamon SkinCinnamon Skin is the twentieth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. Like a few other books in the series, McGee ends up traveling to Mexico to solve a crime....
(1982) - The Lonely Silver RainThe Lonely Silver RainThe Lonely Silver Rain is the 21st and final novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The work was published a year prior to the author's death, and was not intentionally the end of the series...
(1984)
In addition, the 1966 MacDonald novel The Last One Left
The Last One Left
The Last One Left is a mystery novel by John D. MacDonald. The story largely takes place in southern Florida and the Bahamas, and is similar to many of the author's Travis McGee stories. The book is in fact dedicated to McGee "who lent invaluable support and encouragement," and a named runabout...
carries the author's inscription, "I dedicate this novel to TRAVIS McGEE, who lent invaluable support and encouragement." With much of the action occurring in the boat cruising world of southeastern Florida, it is similar to some of the McGee stories. The book also mentions the Munequita, a small runabout that McGee later buys in Pale Gray for Guilt.
Adaptations
Travis McGee has twice been translated to cinema and television; Rod TaylorRod Taylor (actor)
Rodney Sturt "Rod" Taylor is an Australian-American actor of film and television.-Early life:Born on 11 January 1930 in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, Taylor was the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor and commercial artist, and the former Mona Thompson, a writer of...
played McGee in Darker Than Amber
Darker than Amber (film)
Darker than Amber is a 1970 film adaptation of the John D. MacDonald novel Darker than Amber. It was directed by Robert Clouse from a screenplay by MacDonald and Ed Waters. It starred Rod Taylor as the main series character: Travis McGee. Darker than Amber remains the only McGee novel adapted to...
(1970), and Sam Elliott
Sam Elliott
Samuel Pack "Sam" Elliott is an American actor. His rangy physique, thick horseshoe moustache, and deep, resonant voice match the iconic image of a cowboy or rancher, and he has often been cast in such roles.-Early life:Sam Elliott was born in Sacramento, California, to a physical training...
played him in the television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
of The Empty Copper Sea
The Empty Copper Sea
The Empty Copper Sea is the seventeenth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. In it, McGee looks into the apparent drowning of Hub Lawless in a boating accident. His $2 million insurance policy leads some to believe he has faked his death.The title of the book is taken from a...
, titled Travis McGee (1983). Inexplicably, the latter film locates McGee in California — eliminating the Florida locales central to the novels. In addition, Elliott kept his trademark brushy mustache, thoroughly distancing himself from the clean-shaven, brush cut look McGee maintains in the books.
In 1967, author MacDonald refused permission for a television series about Travis McGee and his cases, feeling people would stop reading the novels were Travis McGee regularly on television. Comedian Dan Rowan, a friend of MacDonald's, had expressed interest in playing the role of Travis McGee, but nothing ever materialized.
Actor Darren McGavin
Darren McGavin
Darren McGavin was an American actor best known for playing the title role in the television horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker and his portrayal in the film A Christmas Story of the grumpy father given to bursts of profanity that he never realizes his son overhears...
provided the voice of Travis McGee in the majority of the audio book versions of the novels.
According to the Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
, a film version of The Deep Blue Good-by
The Deep Blue Good-by
The Deep Blue Good-by is the first of 21 novels in the Travis McGee series by American author John D. MacDonald. Commissioned in 1964 by Fawcett Publications editor Knox Burger, the book establishes for the series an investigative protagonist in a residential Florida base—as well as a...
, directed by Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
as Travis McGee, was in development with a tentative release date of 2011 or 2012. In April 2010, it was announced that the film's title was changed to Travis McGee. In April 2011, it was announced that Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass is an English film director, screenwriter and former journalist. He specialises in dramatisations of real-life events and is known for his signature use of hand-held cameras.-Life and career:...
was interested in directing the film.
Literary landmark
When the U.S. organization Friends of Libraries U.S.A.Friends of Libraries
Friends of Libraries USA are non-profit charitable, groups formed to support libraries in their communities. Friends of Libraries groups are often involved in fundraising, advocacy, volunteerism,public awareness campaigns, and literacy programs.-See also:...
decided to institute a series of literary landmark plaques analogous to historic landmark markers, the first to be installed was at Slip F18 in Bahia Mar, the anchorage of the Busted Flush. After the remodeling of the Bahia Mar Yachting Center in 2003 to replace fixed docks with floating docks, there no longer existed a Slip F18. The plaque was remounted on a movable wooden base, which is presently located inside the marina Dockmaster's Office.