Ross Macdonald

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Ross Macdonald , John Macdonald or John Ross Macdonald (born December 13, 1915 in Los Gatos , California , † July 11, 1983 in Santa Barbara , California; actually Kenneth Millar ) was an American writer and lecturer .

Life

Kenneth Millar was born in Los Gatos, California in 1915, but spent the first few years of his life with his parents in Canada . After his parents separated, he stayed with relatives and in boarding schools. Millar attended Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School, and in the 1930s studied in Ontario , Toronto and Michigan . In between he interrupted his studies and traveled through Europe. On his return he married Margaret Sturm in 1938, later better known as the successful writer Margaret Millar .

Millar initially taught English and history in private schools and later at the University of Michigan . From 1944 to 1946 he did his military service in the US Navy Reserve . At the end of his service, he was stationed in California and his family moved there too.

After he had originally called himself John Macdonald, he changed his pseudonym to Ross Macdonald to avoid confusion with the eponymous crime writer John D. MacDonald . Ross Macdonald was a lecturer at the University of Michigan, where he graduated in 1951. There was dissonance between the two spouses, who wrote, because of literary competition, from which their daughter Linda suffered, who became addicted to alcohol and eventually committed suicide. Ross Macdonald then went into psychoanalytic treatment in the late 1950s.

The central theme of Macdonald's detective novels are stumbled teenagers and their parents' guilt. Most of Macdonald's novels contain ramified, far-reaching criminal entanglements that are resolved by private detective Lew Archer. Macdonald was one of the first crime authors of the genre to introduce the minds of psychoanalysis .

In addition to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler , Ross Macdonald is considered one of the most important representatives of the hard school of the detective novel. James Ellroy names him as one of his role models.

Two Lew Archer novels were filmed with Paul Newman as a detective ( Harper , 1966 and The Drowning Pool , 1975); however, for legal reasons, the investigator in the films is called Harper instead of Archer.

Ross Macdonald died of Alzheimer's disease in 1983 . When he died he was America's best known crime writer. He was considered a prolific writer, so he wrote his last and therefore twenty-fourth novel "The Blue Hammer" (1976) within 30 years.

Works

The German translations of Ross Macdonald's novels were published by Amsel-Verlag, Berlin (1954–1956), Scherz Verlag (1960–1995), Rowohlt Verlag (1964–1970) and, since 1970, Diogenes Verlag .

Novels without Lew Archer

  • 1944 The Dark Tunnel (under his real name Kenneth Millar)
  • 1946 Trouble Follows Me (under his real name Kenneth Millar)
  • 1947 Blue City (under his real name Kenneth Millar)
    • New translation: Blue City, German by Christina Sieg-Welti and Christa Hotz; Diogenes, Zurich 1985. ISBN 3-257-21317-4
  • 1948 The Three Roads (under his real name Kenneth Millar)
    • Black Past, German by Rosmarie Kahn-Ackermann; Desch, Munich / Vienna / Basel 1967
    • New translation: The murderer in the mirror, German by Dietlind Bindheim; Diogenes, Zurich 1983. ISBN 3-257-21303-4
  • 1953 Meet Me at the Morgue (as John Ross Macdonald)
    • The suitcase under the bed, German by Vernon C. Baxter; Amsel, Berlin 1955
    • New translation: meet me in the morgue, German by Hella von Spies; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1969
  • 1961 The Ferguson Affair
    • File Ferguson, German by Ilse Velten; Scherz, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1963

The Lew Archer novels

  • 1949 The Moving Target
    • The Wandering Destination, German by Vernon C. Baxter; Amsel, Berlin 1954
    • Rich people don't die differently either, by Jutta Wannenmacher; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1970. ISBN 3-499-42155-0
  • 1950 The Drowning Pool
    • Anyone who hesitates is lost, by Dietrich Bogulinski; Amsel, Berlin 1954
    • No oil for Mrs. Slocum, German by Hubert Deymann; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1970. ISBN 3-499-42195-X
    • also as: One does not die under water !, same translation; Diogenes, Zurich 1983. ISBN 3-257-20322-5
  • 1951 The Way Some People Die
    • Nice to meet you, Mr. Archer, by Vernon C. Baxter; Amsel, Berlin 1955
    • New translation: The dead do not drown, German by Maria Steininger; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1969
  • 1952 The Ivory Grin (also: Marked For Murder )
    • Nothing but a skeleton, by Dietrich Bogulinski; Amsel, Berlin 1954
    • New translation: Up to the bone, German by Charlotte Hamberger; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1968
    • also as: an ivory grin, same translation; Diogenes, Zurich 1970. ISBN 3-257-20323-3
  • 1954 Find a Victim
    • Victims wanted, German by Christiane St. G. Bock; Amsel, Berlin 1956
    • New translation: Other people corpses, German by Jutta Wannenmacher; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1967
  • 1956 The Barbarous Coast
    • Springboard into Nowhere, German by Marianne Lipcowitz; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1966
    • also as: The coast of the barbarians, same translation; Diogenes, Zurich 1976. ISBN 3-257-20324-1
  • 1958 The Doomsters
    • Debt account of the past, German by Monika Schönenberger; Scherz, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1960
    • also as: gentle calamity, same translation; Diogenes, Zurich 1984. ISBN 3-257-21178-3
  • 1959 The Galton Case
    • A black sheep disappears, German by Egon Lothar Wensk; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1964
    • also as: The Galton Case, same translation; Diogenes, Zurich 1976. ISBN 3-257-20325-X
  • 1961 The Wycherly Woman
    • The real Mrs. Wycherly, German by Bernhard Kempner; Scherz, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1964
    • New translation: Mother and Daughter, German by Karsten Singelmann; Diogenes, Zurich 2018. ISBN 978-3-257-30073-4
  • 1962 The Zebra Striped Hearse
    • Camping in the hearse, German by Gisela Stege; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1965
    • New translation: On the way in the hearse, German by Karsten Singelmann; Diogenes; Zurich 2017. ISBN 978-3-257-30052-9
  • 1964 The Chill
    • Goosebumps, German by Gretel Friedmann; Scherz, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1966
    • New translation: Goosebumps, German by Karsten Singelmann; Diogenes, Zurich 2014. ISBN 978-3-257-30024-6
  • 1965 The Far Side of the Dollar
  • 1966 Black Money
    • Money doesn't pay for everything, German by Norbert Wölfl; Scherz, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1968
    • also as: black money, same translation; Scherz, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1995. ISBN 3-502-51521-2
    • New translation: Schwarzgeld, German by Karsten Singelmann; Diogenes, Zurich 2016. ISBN 978-3-257-30040-6
  • 1968 The Instant Enemy
    • Durchgebrannt, German by Helmut Degner; Diogenes, Zurich 1970
  • 1969 The Goodbye Look
  • 1971 The Underground Man
    • The underground man, German by Hubert Deymann; Diogenes, Zurich 1973. ISBN 3-257-01507-0
    • New translation: Der Untergrundmann, German by Karsten Singelmann; Diogenes, Zurich 2015. ISBN 978-3-257-30034-5
  • 1973 Sleeping Beauty
  • 1976 The Blue Hammer

Volumes of short stories

  • 1955 The Name is Archer
    • German in two volumes: 1. Some like it cold, 2. Some like it ice cold, German by Hubert Deymann; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1. 1967; 2nd 1969
    • also as: all detective stories, same translation; Diogenes, Zurich 1976. ISBN 3-257-00955-0
    • also as: 1. The mastermind: all. Detective stories about Lew Archer I, same translation, Diogenes, Zurich 1983. ISBN 3-257-21018-3 , 2. One always lies, same translation, Diogenes, Zurich 1999. ISBN 3-257-21019-1
  • 1974 Great Stories of Suspense
  • 1977 Lew Archer, Private Investigator
  • 1982 Early Millar. 1st Stories of Ross Macdonald and Margaret Millar
  • 2000 Strangers in Town. Three Newly Discovered Stories

Non-fiction

  • 1973 On Crime Writing
  • 1981 Ceaselessly Into the Past [self-portrait]

Film adaptations

There was also a six-episode mini-television series ( Archer , 1975) with Brian Keith in the title role.

Biographies

literature

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Macdonald, Ross
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Millar, Kenneth (real name); Macdonald, John (pen name); Macdonald, John Ross (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American crime novelist
DATE OF BIRTH December 13, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Gatos , California
DATE OF DEATH July 11, 1983
Place of death Santa Barbara , California