10/16/00
Celebrating a literary heritage
The "Busted Flush." "Slip F18." "Bahia Mar." Sound familiar? No? How about the titles "The Lonely Silver Rain," "Free Fall in Crimson," "A Purple Place for Dying"? Oh, the books about that beach bum, Travis McGee, a guy who worked at "salvage" whenever he needed to supplement his early retirement. Although largely set in Fort Lauderdale, McGee's adventures in 21 novels took him throughout the state. Not one, however, was based in Sarasota, the home of McGee's creator, John D. MacDonald, who moved to Siesta Key in 1952. Through January, the Sarasota County Historical Archives Department is honoring the county's literary legacy with an exhibit that focuses on MacDonald, MacKinlay Kantor and Walter Farley, all of whom were permanent residents of the county. "Our county is billed as a cultural mecca," said Anne Schenck, Archives Director. "Our literary heritage is just not as visible as our music or art, so we wanted to promote that aspect with this exhibit." Of the three, MacDonald's fame and influence is the most enduring as acknowledged by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who said, "To diggers a thousand years from now ... the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen." Born in Sharon, Pa., in 1916, MacDonald graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in business. He worked at several menial jobs before earning an MBA from Harvard. It was during World War II --where MacDonald saw service with the Office of Strategic Services in India -- that he saw his first published fiction when he sent a short story to his wife, who sent it to Story magazine. MacDonald received $25 for the piece, and when he left the military at the end of the war, his business career was over. His first novel, "The Brass Cupcake," saw publication in 1950. Before his death in Sarasota in 1986, MacDonald wrote nearly 500 short stories and 66 novels. But it was through Travis McGee -- an ageless beach bum and knight errant like Don Quixote -- that MacDonald won his fame. Environmentalist and moralist in nature, the novels feature sharp characterization and rich locales that set the standard that all modern Florida mystery writers attempt to emulate. One of those is Fort Myers author Randy Wayne White, whom a reviewer for the Tampa Tribune called the inheritor of MacDonald's legacy. "I knew the man, I liked him, but I'm no John D. MacDonald," White said. "I've not reached the standard he set." White met McDonald in the late 1970s when he and some buddies were boating in Sarasota Bay and spontaneously decided to visit MacDonald's distinctive home on Siesta Key. After cruising for some time, the group landed at a residence, intending to ask the owner -- who was marching their way -- the location of MacDonald's home. As fate would have it, the stranger was the somewhat private author who nonetheless invited White and his friends into his home for drinks. That became the basis of an acquaintance between the two. "He could not have been kinder," White said. "He was very tolerant, very gracious, just a class, class act." MacDonald's fame, however, should not overshadow the accomplishments of Kantor and Farley. A Pulitzer Prize winner for his novel "Andersonville" in 1956 -- which depicted the brutality of a Confederate prisoner of war camp during the Civil War, Kantor started his writing career as a newspaper reporter for the Webster City (Iowa) Daily News at age 17. Six years later, he decided to devote his life to historical fiction due to his love of American history and the stories of his great-grandfather, a Union officer during the Civil War. That conflict served as the basis for his first novel, "Long Remember "(1934), about the Battle of Gettysburg. Kantor died in Sarasota in 1977, and the following year, his family donated a sizable collection of his library and furniture to the county. Many of those items will be in a permanent exhibit in the Historical Archives that will reflect Kantor's study. Like MacDonald, Farley also saw military service during World War II, but he was already a published novelist with the children's book "The Black Stallion" (1941). After the war, Farley and his wife traveled widely and bought a farm in Pennsylvania where they could raise horses. Farley also continued to write about them, with 16 additional Black Stallion books following the first one. Farley and his wife were part-time residents of Sarasota County, spending the winter months at a home in Venice, where he conducted much of his writing. "It's good for my eyes to look up from the typewriter to the horizon. There's been lots of close work through the years. And I love the water," he said about his time in Venice. In 1962, Farley and his wife organized a group that later became the Friends of the Venice Public Library. Today, the children's room in the Venice Public Library bears his name in honor of his contributions to the facility. Farley, who died in 1989, achieved additional fame in 1979, when Francis Ford Coppola released the movie "The Black Stallion." The Historical Archives is located at 701 N. Tamiami Trail Sarasota (near Van Wezel). The exhibit runs until Jan. 31. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.
You can e-mail Warren Richardson at wrichardson@sun-herald.com
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