by Tom Nolan
“ ‘Just enjoy it’ ”: Vincent Canby, “What to See If You Can’t Get into the Hits,” New York Times, July 6, 1975.
“ ‘You didn’t miss a thing’ ”: Millar to Ferry, August 28, 1975; typed copy, UCI.
“ ‘The first time I went to Bouchercon’ ”: Jane S. Bakerman interview with TN.
“ ‘I seem to be getting wordier’ ”: Millar to Ferry, August 7, 1975; typed copy, UCI.
“The Tarantula Hawk”: Millar to Bruccoli, September 12, 1975, MJB Collection, UCI.
“The Silent Hammer”: Otto Penzler, “Interview: Ross Macdonald,” Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January 1976. (“MACDONALD: . . . My new novel, The Silent Hammer, has just gone in to my publisher.”)
“ ‘When I read the manuscript’ ”: Easton to Bruccoli, September 22, 1982, courtesy of Robert Easton.
“ ‘My life seems to be spaced out by endless delays’ ”: Millar to Carter, September 9, 1975, courtesy of Steven Carter.
“ ‘Margaret had a cancer removed’ ”: Millar to Ferry, September 30, 1975; typed copy, UCI.
“an ad on the front cover of Publishers Weekly”: December 8, 1975.
“ ‘bemused and depressed’ ”: MacDonald to Millar, December 16, 1975, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Florida Libraries.
“ ‘The big guns of the Beat Generation’ ”: Millar, “Passengers on a Cable Car Named Despair,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 29, 1958.
“ ‘People have been telling me’ ”: Anatole Broyard, “Ay, Ay, Ay, Margaret Millar,” New York Times, October 13, 1976.
“ ‘We met in the parking lot of a country club’ ”: Gault interview with TN.
“ ‘I had started to read mysteries’ ”: Jane Bernstein interview with TN.
“ ‘To a writer who has been at it for quite a while’ ”: Millar to Bernstein, May 17, 1976, courtesy of Jane Bernstein.
“ ‘Even when they’re faced with fairly worthless books’ ”: Transcribed from audiotape, courtesy of Nona Balakian. See also Publishers Weekly account, May 10, 1976.
“Broyard was African-American”: See Henry Louis Gates Jr., “White Like Me,” New Yorker, June 17, 1996. A fictional character apparently inspired by this aspect of Broyard’s biography appears in the 1998 mystery novel A Darker Shade of Crimson, by African-American writer Pamela Thomas-Graham (Simon & Schuster).
“ ‘We talked a bit about his roots’ ”: Linwood Barclay interview with TN.
“ ‘as if I ever could’ ”: Millar to Ruehlmann, May 16, 1976; typed copy, UCI.
“ ‘We’re both past sixty’ ”: Millar to Nona Balakian, May 26, 1976, courtesy of Nona Balakian.
“ ‘He was very shy’ ”: Otto Penzler interview with TN.
“ ‘Fortunately for the town and us’ ”: Millar to Wolfe, June 28, 1976, UCI.
“ ‘Our home is a special island’ ”: Marshall Berges, “Margaret Millar & ‘Ross Macdonald,’ ” Home Magazine, Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1975.
“ ‘waxed enthusiastic’ ”: Digby Diehl, “Between Lines at Writers Conference,” Los Angeles Times Calendar, July 4, 1976.
“ ‘I went to that first Santa Barbara Writers Conference’ ”: Fred Zackel to Millar, October 5, 1977, UCI.
“ ‘brilliantly conceived and woven’ ”: John Seagraves, “Lew Archer at Mid-Century,” Washington Sto?; July 4, 1976.
“ ‘an excellent addition’ ”: Elmer R. Pry, “Believe it or not, Lew Archer finds love,” Chicago Tribune Book World.
“ ‘one of his best’ ”: Walter Clemons, Newsweek, June 21, 1976.
“ ‘perfect blend of style and action’ ”: William McPherson, “Archer with a Deadly Aim,” Washington Post Book World, June 27, 1976.
“ ‘Lew Archer has changed’ ”: Robert Kirsch, “The Mellowing of Lew Archer,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1976.
“ ‘Some time ago’ ”: Anatole Broyard, “Books of the Times,” New York Times, June 11, 1976.
“ ‘Archer tracks the past’ ”: Michael Woods, New York Times Book Review, June 13, 1976.
“ ‘All the reviews have been favorable’ ”: Millar to Wolfe, June 28, 1976, UCI.
“ ‘better than I expected’ ”: Millar to Ferry, July 7, 1976; typed copy, UCI.
“ ‘It seems to me a perfect example’ ”: MacShane to Millar, undated but probably May 16, 1976 (“Gracias a Dios,” wrote MacShane, “my [Chandler] biography was reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review today”), UCI.
“ ‘It seems to me that the control’ ”: Jan La Rue to Millar, August 14, 1977, UCI.
“ ‘I thought The Blue Hammer was your best book for a long time’ ”: Symons to Millar, October 30, 1976, UCI.
“ ‘which casually mentions “the towers of the mission and the courthouse” ’: Julian Symons, “In pursuit of the past,” Times Literary Supplement, April 2, 1982.
“ ‘a paean of praise to life’ ”: H. R. F. Keating, Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books (Carroll & Graf, 1987 [U.S.]; Xanadu Publications Limited, 1987 [U.K.]).
“in the Chicago Sun-Times”: Celeste Durant, “Ross Macdonald: After 19th Novel,” Chicago Sun-Times Living, July 28, 1976.
“the Houston Chronicle”: Susan Wood, “Things aren’t what they seem with Macdonald,” Houston Chronicle, May 9, 1976.
“the National Observer”: Clifford A. Ridley, “Yes, Most of My Chronicles Are Chronicles of Misfortune,” National Observer, July 31, 1976.
“a ‘Critic’s Notebook’ piece”: John Leonard, “Critic’s Notebook: An Evening with 2 Walking Anachronisms,” New York Times, May 26, 1976.
“ ‘your fellow panelist Broyard’s piece of dementia’ ”: Green to Millar, June 23, 1976, UCI.
“ ‘Am all for writing a short lighter book now’ ”: Millar to Ferry, July 7, 1976; typed copy, UCI.
“ ‘After having given the matter much thought’ ”: Draft letter from Schramm, Raddue & Seed to Millar, June 25, 1976, UCI.
“ ‘This sheet of paper’ ”: Paul Nelson interview with TN.
“ ‘They’d read all his books’ ”: Paul Nelson, “Warren Zevon: How He Saved Himself from a Coward’s Death,” Rolling Stone, March 19, 1981.
“ ‘My ex-wife Crystal and I’ ”: Warren Zevon interview with TN.
“ ‘My grandmother is very senatorial’ ”: Nelson, “Warren Zevon.”
“ ‘I grew up with a painting of an uncle’ ”: Ibid.
“ ‘I was that kid’ ”: Grover Lewis to TN.
“ ‘Zevon came bouncing into the cabana’ ”: Nelson interview with TN.
“ ‘Macdonald has still not let me down’ ”: Zevon interview with TN, 1978.
“ ‘The basic truth’ ”: Millar to Ferry, July 7, 1976; typed copy, UCI.
“ ‘You of all people will know’ ”: Symons to Millar, September 13, 1976, UCI.
“ ‘My feeling when Linda died’ ”: Millar to Symons, October 11, 1976, courtesy of Julian Symons.
“ ‘overhung by the unfriendliness’ ”: Millar to Wolfe, October 9, 1976, UCI.
“ ‘Such are the occasional pleasures’ ”: Ibid.
“ ‘in all its beautiful broken down strangeness’ ”: Millar to Ferry, November 24, 1976; typed copy, UCI.
“ ‘I seem to be crazy about places’ ”: Millar to Wolfe, October 9, 1976, UCI.
“ ‘I like the watery places’ ”: Millar to Symons, October 11, 1976, courtesy of Julian Symons.
“a glimpse of Frank MacShane”: Millar to Jane Bernstein, October 5, 1976, courtesy of Jane Bernstein.
“ ‘More and more my mind bends back’ ”: Millar to Ferry, September 3, 1976; typed copy, UCI.
“ ‘Here is proof positive’ ”: Joseph the Provider catalog #53 (1994).
“ ‘character, atmosphere, wit, passion’ ”: Anatole Broyard, “Ay,
Ay, Ay, Margaret Millar,” New York Times, October 13, 1976.
“ ‘I’m unable to write for long periods’ ”: Millar to Bernstein, October 5, 1976, courtesy of Jane Bernstein.
“ ‘Some are born Canadian’ ”: Margaret Atwood, introduction, The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English, selected by Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver (Oxford, 1997).
“ ‘You thought the national flag was about a leaf’ ”: Margaret Atwood, Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian literature (Clarendon Press/Oxford, 1995).
“come to interview him for Writer’s Yearbook”: Jane S. Bakerman, “A Slightly Stylized Conversation with Ross Macdonald,” Writer’s Yearbook 1981.
“ ‘Isn’t that nice?’ ”: Jane S. Bakerman interview with TN.
“ ‘My epistolary ennui’ ”: Millar to Bernstein, undated, courtesy of Jane Bernstein.
“ ‘He was not an easy interview’ ”: interview with TN.
“ ‘In a gray suit, a gray tie’ ”: Clifford A. Ridley, “Yes, Most of My Chronicles Are Chronicles of Misfortune,” National Observer, July 31, 1976.
“ ‘I had a feeling he was somehow astonished’ ”: Richard Moore interview with TN.
“ ‘Canada seems to hang like a glacier’ ”: Ross Macdonald, “The Writer’s Sense of Place: A Symposium and Commentaries,” South Dakota Review, Autumn 1975; reprinted in Self-Portrait.
“ ‘What infinitely complicated stratagems’ ”: Millar to Wolfe, January 20, 1973, UCI.
“ ‘Canadians become Canadians’ ”: Millar to Ford, February 1972, National Library of Canada.
“ ‘I really think that Lew Archer is a Canadian-American type’ ”: Macdonald radio interview with Michael Enwright, This Country in the Morning, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, January 1, 1975.
“ ‘Archer is a life-size hero’ ”: Ross Macdonald film, part of public-television series The Originals: The Writer in America, produced by Richard Moore, first broadcast 1978.
“ ‘a new kind of hero’ ”: Robertson Davies, “The Canada of Myth and Reality,” in One Half of Robertson Davies (Viking, 1977).
“ ‘Canada is coming alive’ ”: Millar to Davie, April 10, 1973, courtesy of Ralph Sipper.
“ ‘Robertson Davies is still writing under the influence of Stephen Leacock’ ”: Tutunjian, “A Conversation with Ross Macdonald.”
“ ‘I have never before read a story which so piercingly and succinctly examined’ ”: Millar to Alice Munro, June 27, 1977, Alice Munro fonds, Special Collections, MacKimmie Library, University of Calgary.
“a scant fourteen hundred copies”: Green to Millar, September 16, 1974, UCI.
“ ‘I spoke at the MLA in Montreal’ ”: Leonard interview with TN.
“In two intriguing essays”: Russell M. Brown, “In Search of Lost Causes: The Canadian Novelist as Mystery Writer,” Mosaic, Spring 1978; Russell Brown, “Ross Macdonald as Canadian Mystery Writer,” in Seasoned Authors for a New Season: The Search for Standards in Popular Writing (Bowling Green University popular Press, 1980).
“Brown thought Macdonald’s use of landscape as ‘a kind of presence’ was typical of Canadian writing”: Mystery-fiction publisher-scholar Otto Penzler, in The Private Lives of Private Eyes, Spies, Crimefighters, & Other Good Guys (Grosset & Dunlap, 1977), made the keen observation that Lew “Archer is more acutely aware of the environment than any detective since November Joe, ‘the detective of the woods’ about whom Hesketh Prichard wrote more than half a century ago.” Prichard was a Canadian; his November Joe tales, serialized in the Wiarton, Ontario, newspaper, were almost certainly the first mystery stories Kenneth Millar read.
“ ‘all that old sadness’ ”: Millar to Symons, January 19, 1972, courtesy of Julian Symons.
“ ‘With it . . . I think I want to go further’ ”: Millar to Walker, March 27, 1973, courtesy of Gerald Walker.
“ ‘Ultimately my novels’ ”: Millar note, “WIARTON,” on back of royalty advance statement (“Received from The Mysterious Press”) from Harold Ober Associates to Millar, January 18, 1977, UCI.
“ ‘the mid-west and Canada’ ”: Brown, “In Search of Lost Causes.”
“ ‘Ken was wonderful through my illness’ ”: Beverly Slopen, “The Most Private Eye,” The Canadian, August 20, 1977.
“ ‘A man can’t fight these wars without some help’ ”: Millar to Avallone, October 19, 1975, UCI.
“he started sessions”: Millar expense records, notebook, UCI.
“ ‘Asked for his views on the future of the mystery’ ”: Richard R. Lingeman, “Book Ends,” New York Times Book Review, April 2, 1978.
“ ‘It was “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”’ ”: Diane K. Shah interview with TN.
“ ‘The fact is that Margaret’ ”: Millar to Miller, January 19, 1978, the Nolan Miller Papers, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan Library.
“interviewed by Newsweek”: Diane K. Shah with Margaret Malone, “Murder, They Said,” Newsweek, March 27, 1978.
“New York Daily News”: Millar’s schedule indicates a March 15, 1978, interview with Pete Hamill of the News. If an article resulted, it has not been located.
“National Public Radio”: “Whodunnit?” Options series, National Public Radio, 1978.
“BBC television”: BBC TV, “Crime Writers: What Next?” producer Bernard Adams, 1978.
“ ‘The Mystery Writers were very very pleased’ ”: Symons interview with TN.
“ ‘Publishers are getting greedy’ ”: “Whodunnit?” Options series.
“ ‘Is it possible’ ”: “The State of the Art: A Symposium Conducted by Brian Garfield,” Publishers Weekly, March 10, 1978.
“ ‘the most interesting speech of the congress’ ”: Julian Symons, “Murder at the Biltmore,” (London) Sunday Times Magazine, May 21, 1978.
“ ‘It was like he was in left field’ ”: Fred Klein interview with TN.
“ ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you more time’ ”: Millar to Speir, April 12, 1978, courtesy of Jerry Speir.
“ ‘one of the best things that have ever happened to me’ ”: Millar to Davie, December 12, 1978, courtesy Ralph Sipper.
“The Eye of the Story: Selected Essays and Reviews”: Random House, 1978. In his favorable New York Times review of this book, Anatole Broyard managed to avoid mentioning it was dedicated to Kenneth Millar or that it included Welty’s review of The Underground Man.
“ ‘In 1978 we had quite a severe earthquake’ ”: The Third Degree, June/July 1983.
“ ‘It did have the virtue of being hard to write’ ”: Millar to Davie, December 12, 1978.
“ ‘He’s genuinely good’ ”: Ibid.
“ ‘as clever as a cop’ ”: Ibid.
“ ‘deep and slow and golden’ ”: Ibid.
“ ‘I can only say’ ”: Olding to Millar, December 5, 1978, Princeton.
“ ‘high local pressures’ ”: Millar to Olding, December 22, 1978, Princeton.
“ ‘After our incredible long romantic youths’ ”: Millar to Davie, December 12, 1978.
“ ‘At the lowest point in my life’ ”: Nelson, Rolling Stone, March 19, 1981.
“ ‘I’ve been rereading parts of the three books’ ”: Millar to Olding, March 5, 1979; typed copy, UCI.
“ ‘My own personal tides’ ”: Millar to Bernstein, April 9, 1979, courtesy of Jane Bernstein.
“ ‘Not easy’ ”: Millar to Olding, undated, received May 1, 1979, Princeton.
“ ‘I hope my books echo’ ”: Macdonald preface to Archer in Jeopardy; reprinted in Self-Portrait.
“ ‘The last time I saw my father’s living eyes’ ”: Macdonald foreword to A Collection of Reviews; reprinted in Self-Portrait.
“ ‘Are you working on a book?’ ”: Olding to Millar, June 12, 1979, UCI.
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�� ‘I am not retiring from fiction’ ”: Millar to Olding, June 28, 1979, Princeton.
“ ‘In many respects it is a novel of manners’ ”: Newgate Callendar, “Crime,” New York Times Book Review, April 29, 1979.
“ ‘Ross Macdonald has 13,400,000 books in Bantam print!’ ”: Bantam press release, August 1979, UCI.
“ ‘Believe me’ ”: Fred Klein interview with TN.
“ ‘would be glad to see The Moving Target’ ”: Millar to Phyllis Westburg (Harold Ober Associates), May 17, 1971, Princeton.
“ ‘We skate along’ ”: Millar to Symons, June 8, 1979, courtesy of Julian Symons.
“ ‘It will come as no surprise to you’ ”: Millar to Olding, August 3, 1979, Princeton.
“ ‘I had a homicide detective in psychoanalysis’ ”: Dr. Edwin C. Peck Jr. interview with TN.
“One way or another’ ”: Zevon interview with TN.
“ ‘Zevon was in bad, bad, bad shape’ ”: Nelson interview with TN.
“ ‘You’re not only the finest novelist’ ”: Zevon to Millar, undated (apparently 1980), UCI.
“Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School”: Asylum album, February 1980.
“ ‘I’ve been back at my desk’ ”: Millar to Green, September 3, 1979, quoted by Green in “A Tribute,” Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1983.
“ ‘Archer discovers his own early—perhaps pre-memory—life in Wiarton’ ”: Millar notebook, UCI.
“ ‘It’s all one case’ ”: A phrase often uttered by Lew Archer. Paul Nelson used it as the title of his Rolling Stone piece on Millar when it was reprinted in InwardJourney.
“ ‘almost as a goad to himself’ ”: Green, “A Tribute.”
“The house of Knopf agreed to pay”: Ober “BOOK CONTRACT” memo, undated, Princeton.
“ ‘Lew Archer remembers’ ”: Grella, “Evil Plots.”
“ ‘Archer is a life-size hero’ ”: Richard Moore film.
“ ‘I might as well have phoned them in’ ”: Alex Law, “A moment with Millar,” The (Hamilton, Ontario) Spectator, June 1988.
“ ‘I don’t know why’ ”: Margaret Millar interview with TN.
