KENNETH MILLAR

Ross Macdonald

    Some fans of detective fiction would realize that Kenneth Millar published several books using the moniker ‘Ross Macdonald’ and a few might even know that he has a connection with Western University and southwestern Ontario. (Those of us who are not fans should know that he is not John D. Macdonald. To help keep them straight, remember Lew Archer when you think of Ross, and Travis McGee when you think of John D.). Millar attended Western and was raised in Kitchener. His wife, Margaret, who was also raised there and was the daughter of the mayor, has a London connection as well. She also is an author.

    You can learn more about Millar by reading the fine profile that appeared in Western’s Alumni Gazette (Linwood Barclay, “Best Kept Secret”, Alumni Gazette, Fall, 2015, p.36). From it you will learn that Millar is very interesting and a fine fellow. He answered Barclay’s letters, helped him with a manuscript and even visited him in Peterborough. You can easily learn more about both Millars since each has a Wikipedia entry. Given that fact, my focus is on some recent information that I stumbled across.

A New Book about Macdonald

    The new book is: It's All One Case: The Illustrated Ross Macdonald Archives, by Paul Nelson and Kenneth Avery, with Jeff Wong. It is published by Fantagraphics. After reading a review I was enticed into reading more about both Millars. After doing so, I think it is clear that they are worth your attention. Below, I will simply provide the evidence and you can decide for yourself.

   This starts with my reading a review of It’s All One Case… by Michael Dirda (“‘It’s All One Case’ is a Revealing Look at Detective Master Ross Macdonald,” Washington Post,  Nov. 30, 2016). It should be noted that Dirda is not a mystery buff; he is a long-time reviewer and Pulitzer Prize-winner. Here is some of what he has to say:

“It’s All One Case” is a book that any devotee of American detective fiction would kill for. For fans of Ross Macdonald, the finest American detective novelist of the 1950s and ’60s, it’s an absolute essential.”

[ The book contains the transcript of 47 hours of recorded conversation with Rolling Stone reporter Paul Nelson done in 1976, but never published.]

“Yet there’s still another reason to covet this book — its pictures, hundreds of them. Virtually every page shows off Jeff Wong’s awe-inspiring collection of material relating to Millar.”

“Here one can see every Ross Macdonald novel in every hardcover and paperback edition and seemingly all the periodicals — from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine to Cosmopolitan and Gallery — in which Millar published a story or article; reproductions of the writer’s handwritten letters, spiral notebooks and typed manuscripts; pages from Knopf galleys; and even VHS tapes and DVDs of the movies and TV series based on private eye Lew Archer.”

“In addition, “It’s All One Case” includes dozens of photographs of Millar, as a boy in Canada, at his longtime home in Santa Barbara, and with his wife, the comparably gifted mystery writer Margaret Millar (whose works Soho Press has recently reissued in several omnibus volumes).”

    For more about this book see: “It’s All One Case: A Conversation Between Biographers,” Tom Nolan interviews Kevin Avery, Los Angeles Review of Books, Dec. 12, 2016.

    In passing I will note that Millar did more after leaving Western than write books. He also wrote a doctoral dissertation while at the University of Michigan: The Inward Eye: A Revaluation of Coleridge’s Psychological Criticism.
    There are also at least three Ph.D.’s about him: 1)The Detective Fiction of Kenneth Millar/Ross Macdonald; 2)Visions and Values in the Action Detective Novel: A Study of the Works of Raymond Chandler, Kenneth Millar, and 3)John D. Macdonald and Clients, Colleagues, and Consorts: Roles of Women in American Hardboiled Detective Fiction and Film.

Margaret Millar

    Dirda mentioned that some of Margaret Millar’s books have been reissued by Soho Press where one will also find the photograph above. Here are some of the books by her listed on the Soho site (more are found in the Wikipedia entry):

An Air That Kills

Beast in View

The Listening Walls

Vanish in an Instant

Beyond This Point are Monsters

Also from the Soho site:

“Her 1956 novel ‘Beast in View’ won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. In 1965, Millar was the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year Award and in 1983 the Mystery Writers of America awarded her the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement. Millar’s cutting wit and superb plotting have left her an enduring legacy as one of the most important crime writers of both her own and subsequent generations.”

    Lest you think the above is simply publisher’s hype, consider what this author has to say:

“Perhaps you’ve heard of “Maggie” Millar. She’s a literary suspense author who, at the onset of World War II, explored female characters as they battled the daily accretions of frustrated ambition and blocked power, often while trying to keep a grip on their own sanity…”

“Maggie, who spent much of her life in Santa Barbara, ranks among the best fiction writers of the late 20th century. She was a master of character, a genius of plot twists, and a superb stylist.”

   It is then mentioned that it was while staying with an aunt in London that she met Ken who was studying at Western. For details see: “The Dangerous Housewife: Santa Barbara's Margaret Millar,” By Kathleen Sharp, Los Angeles Review of Books, Nov.28, 2013.

  Additional information about Margaret Millar’s London connection is found in the obituary for her mother Mrs. Henry Sturm, the wife of the former mayor of Kitchener. It indicates that her [Mrs. Sturm’s] mother, Mrs. A. Ferrier, was still living in London as were her two sisters: Mrs William Rhodes and Mrs William Gould. (See: The Globe and Mail, April 11, 1935. For a later piece about the Millars in The Globe and Mail see, “The Millars From Kitchener Succeed as Mystery Writers,” July 17, 1948.)

The Library of America

    The article by Mr. Barclay that appeared in the Alumni Gazette is based on his earlier review of of the new set of Macdonald’s books that is now available from the Library of America. See: “Known Associates: Ross Macdonald: Four Novels of the 1950s,The Globe and Mail, May 2, 2015, p.R17. Some of Macdonald’s works had already been published by the LOA. And, one of Margaret’s books is published by them as well. In addition, the LOA site has some good articles about Kenneth Millar. Here is the information you need.

The first set of Macdonald’s books available from the Library of America:

Ross Macdonald: Four Novels of the 1950s, ed. Tom Nolan. (No.264)
The Way Some People Die | The Barbarous Coast | The Doomsters | The Galton Case

The most recent set of books by Macdonald published by the LOA:

Ross Macdonald:Three Novels of the Early 1960s, ed. By Tom Nolan (No. 279)
The Zebra-Striped Hearse | The Chill | The Far Side of the Dollar

In addition to the seven novels by Ross Macdonald there is one by Margaret Millar. It is found in: Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (boxed set), ed. By Sarah Weinman.
The novel is: Beast in View.

See also these articles on the LOA site:

“With It’s All One Case, a Designer and Collector has Ross Macdonald Covered” Nov.7, 2016 - has an interview with Jeff Wong.

“Ross Macdonald, Margaret Millar, and the Traumas That Encompassed Literature and Life,” by Tom Nolan, June 22, 2015

“Ross Macdonald, Perpetual Stranger in his Native California,” June 9, 2015, Tom Nolan.

    The Library of America is dedicated to publishing books which are considered to be classics and the Millars are in fine company. As an aside, one can mention another connection with Western University, albeit an oblique one.The great literary critic, Edmund Wilson, pushed hard to see a publisher produce classic American works and was a major force behind the creation of the LOA. You can learn more about that by reading this article: “Edmund Wilson’s Big Idea: A Series of Books Devoted to Classic American Writing: It Almost Didn’t Happen.” By David Skinner, Humanities,  September/October 2015, Volume 36, Number 5. Wilson’s son taught at Western for years and recently retired (his mother, by the way, was Mary McCarthy). The last name ‘Wilson’ guaranteed a fair degree of anonymity for which I am sure the son is grateful, so I will not mention his first name here. I saw him just before Christmas in the Weldon Library.

Ross Macdonald and Eudora Welty

    Since you have been interested enough to read this far you should also know there is another new book about Ross Macdonald.

See: Meanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald edited by Suzanne Marrs and Tom Nolan.

For a review see: “The Letters of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald.” H. Gaston Hall, Sewanee Review, Volume 124, Number 2, Spring 2016.

See also: “A Literary Mystery: What Drew Eudora Welty to Detective Writer Ross Macdonald?” By Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post,  April 13, 2016.