Margaret Millar

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Margaret Ellis Millar (born February 5, 1915 in Kitchener , Ontario , † March 26, 1994 in Santa Barbara , California ), born Margaret Ellis Sturm , was a Canadian and later American crime writer .

Life

Margaret Millar's father, Henry William Sturm, was a businessman and Mayor of Kitchener in 1933-34. She attended the Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute (1929-1933) and then studied classical philology at the University of Toronto (1933-1936, without a degree). In 1938 she married her childhood friend Kenneth Millar. Their daughter Linda was born the following year. The family moved to Ann Arbor , Michigan, and lived there from 1942 to 1944. Her husband became a soldier and she worked as a screenwriter for Warner Bros. in Hollywood for two years (1945/46). After the war ended, the Millars moved to Santa Barbara. Since 1958 they lived outside in a forested canyon. Her daughter died in 1970.

Her husband first worked as a teacher, later he was successful as a writer. Under the pseudonym Ross Macdonald , his novels about Lew Archer have been published since 1949 in the tradition of the hard school of the detective novel and the successor to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler . At first Margaret Millar was more successful and better known than her husband Kenneth Millar. When film rights were bought from her, the family was able to buy a house. A film in which Bette Davis was supposed to play the leading role, however, was not made.

Her first novel, The Invisible Worm (1941), introduced psychiatrist Paul Prye as an investigator. The choice of his profession shows Millar's interest in psychology, which is evident in most of her books. She is considered an early realistic observer of the female psyche in detective novels. But she did not neglect criminal research either. She was an observer at murder trials for forty years.

After three novels published by Doubleday , the publisher turned down another book. Millar moved to Random House , which remained her house publisher.

Her artistic breakthrough is considered by the critic HRF Keating Beast in View from 1955 ( Dear mother, I'm fine ... ), for which she received the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1956 . Keating included it in his list of the Top 100 Detective Novels of All Time in 1987.

Many of the Millars' novels are set in California. Millar has been committed to environmental protection since the 1960s and founded the California branch of the National Audubon Society , an environmental protection organization. In her non-fiction book The Birds and the Beasts Were There , she describes her observations of nature in the canyons around her home. She did not publish a new book for six years after her daughter's death. She then published five books, the last three years after her husband's death in 1983. Margaret Millar died on March 26, 1994 at the age of 79. Their ashes were scattered around Santa Barbara.

Awards

bibliography

Paul Prye books
  • The Invisible Worm, 1941
  • The Weak-Eyed Bat, 1942
  • The Devil Loves Me, 1942
Inspector Sands Books
  • Wall of Eyes, 1943 (German blind eyes see more ).
  • The Iron Gates. Also Taste of Fears, 1945. (German: The Iron Gate , also: Emissary of the Devil )
Novels
  • Fire Will Freeze, 1944 (Eng. There were only nine left )
  • Experiment in Springtime, 1947 (German ensnared )
  • It's all in the family, 1948 (dt. It runs in the family )
  • The Cannibal Heart, 1949 (German cannibal heart )
  • Do Evil in Return, 1950 (German like you me )
  • Rose's Last Summer, 1952 (German last appearance of Rose )
  • Vanish in an Instant, 1952 (German silent consolation )
  • Wives and Lovers, 1954 ( Do not awaken love )
  • Beast in View, 1955 (dt. Mother, I'm fine ... )
  • An Air That Kills, also: The Soft Talkers, 1957 (German: Die Süssholzraspler ~ Unmasked by chance )
  • The Listening Walls, 1959 (dt. The listening walls )
  • A Stranger in My Grave, Random House, New York City 1960.
  • How Like an Angel, 1962 ( almost like an angel )
  • The Fiend, 1964 (Eng. Die Feindin )
  • Beyond This Point Are Monsters, 1970 (German. From here on it gets dangerous )
Tom Aragon books
  • Ask for Me Tomorrow, 1976 (German asks about me tomorrow )
  • The Murder of Miranda, 1979 (Eng. The Murder of Miranda )
  • Mermaid, 1982 (German nymphs belong in the sea! )
Novels
  • Banshee, 1983 ( Banshee the Banshee )
  • Spider Webs, 1986 (German laws are like spider webs )
Non-fiction (bird watching)
  • The Birds and the Beasts Were There, 1968. Autobiographical elements.
estate
  • The Couple Next Door, 2004. Tom Nolan (Ed.). Unpublished and magazine publications.

literature

  • John M. Reilly: Margaret Millar . In: Earl F. Bargainnier (Ed.): Woman of Mystery , Popular Press, 1981, pp. 224-246.
  • Elizabeth Blakeslay Lindsay: Great Woman Mystery Writers . Greenwood, 2007, pp. 174-178.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ kirjasto.sci.fi ( Memento from January 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Kannibalenherz in the radio play adaptation by Valerie Stiegele, NDR 1989, length: 56'50 , 'Zum 100. Birthday von Margaret Millar' was broadcast by Deutschlandradio Kultur on February 2, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Millar, Margaret
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sturm, Margaret Ellis (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian crime novelist
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Kitchener, Ontario , Canada
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1994
Place of death Santa Barbara (California)