Possibly the best reply from an author ever...

on
While putting together an inventory of our dad's books, my sister came across this fantastic letter from legendary hardboiled mystery-crime novelist John D. MacDonald, author of seventy-eight books, including the Travis McGee series. This was written in August of 1967, when our dad was an Army draftee stationed at Edgewood Arsenal, and was sent in response to a mash note that dad, a lifelong MacDonald aficionado, had mailed to him. It's worth a read:


As an aside, I love that small-caps font MacDonald's typewriter produced. Fantastic.

Comments

DKoren said…
Wow, that is awesome. What a neat letter he wrote your father! And reminds me yet again how important it is to let people know how much their work (whatever it may be) means to us.
October 5, 2012 at 10:30 AM
Morgan Richter said…
I love that letter, with the references to the "cuff-link fellows" with their "nasty little tube", offering MacDonald a mountain of bread to turn Travis McGee over to them for a TV series (though, really, if done right, that could've been awesome). There's so much life and vigor and personality in just those couple of paragraphs -- and this is all in a letter to a fan. Quite a change from the expected ("Dear Reader: Thank you for your words about my books. I regret that I am unable to reply to all my fans personally. Sincerely yrs...").
October 5, 2012 at 10:44 AM
Unknown said…
That is totally awesome. Very, very cool.
October 5, 2012 at 8:06 PM
Post a Comment