 | Love it or hate it, you will not forget it.
rating: 3
A Tan and Sandy Silence is certainly not the best book John D. MacDonald ever authored. In fact, some may find it way too dark and unsettingly disturbing. Others may object to it for a host of very legitimate reasons. But I daresay that even those readers who find themselves hating this Travis McGee novel still will have to admit it is a substantive, unforgettable read.
The unevenly paced narrative revolves around McGee's efforts to locate Mary Broll, a former lover whom no one seems to have seen in over three months. His search takes him to the tropical island of Grenada where the case takes on an entirely different trajectory. As others have already accurately pointed out, the novel starts off slow, climaxes with some very macabre events and has somewhat of a rushed ending. Along the way, the reader is treated to large helpings of Travis McGee's introspection on a wide range of topics having to do with modern life. After a while, this inner monologue, though at times clever, becomes tiresome and gives the impression of too much self-indulgence on author MacDonald's part.
Other objectionable aspects of this book include its incorporation of an excessive amount of amateur psychology into the plot and the fact that McGee never, ever fails to completely captivate members of the opposite sex.
The positive attributes of this book would have to include MacDonald's very evocative and original brand of prose and the presence of a number of characters who come off as quite believable.
John D. MacDonald was unquestionably a great writer, but A Tan and Sandy Silence is one of his lesser works. He was capable of much better.
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A low for McDonald
rating: 2
This was about my 13th McGee novel and it was a disappointment. I'm hip to the Trav legacy, and aware that the author's condescension toward women, rock music and men with long hair was part of the McDonald DNA (sign of the times, probably). But this book just has too much of that. The villain's level of sadism is over the top and we are treated to a particularly vicious drowning murder of a woman. The land development scheme is baffling Trav accomplishes a physical feat in the ocean that is flat impossible and his rescue is an outrageous coincidence. Finally, the villain's comeuppance is out of a James Bond novel. Be warned.
Still, I'll probably get around to more McGee adventures. BTW, ever notice these common traits shared by McGee women: They're in glowing health, when they sit on a couch they tuck their legs under, when they concentrate they put the tip of their tongue in the corner of their mouth, when they eat they lick their fingers, when they sleep they snore softly and they yawn a lot. Man, do they yawn.
As to men, if they're fat and pale -- can't be trusted. If they're fat and hairy (like Meyer) -- salt of the earth.
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Read this one last, or near the end
rating: 3
I do not wish to write a review that says too much, spoiling it for a future reader. I just wanted to say that this one was a disappointment for me. This one was predictable, had Travis doing things that unpleasantly surprised me, and the ending was something cheap and quick. I never felt like I was "there" with him as I have in other books.
As far as being a tired effort from the end of MacDonald's career, "The Lonely Silver Rain" was written in 1985 and was much better in my mind. I would just save "A Tan and Sandy Silence" for later or last. Go through the ones that are just gold first.
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from the Jimmy Buffett school of detective fiction
rating: 1
A colleague of mine left this book on my desk one day. Reading it made me wish he had left the hardbound version, since that way it would have hurt more when I threw it back at him!
It's a detective story, you see, featuring the inimitable Travis McGee, the beach bum cum gumshoe who appears in over a dozen MacDonald outings.
What can I say about this book? In one stroke, MacDonald has managed to outstrip Flaubert, Dostoevsky, and Joyce, making them all look like mewling infants.
Here's just a sample of MacDonald's deathless prose:
"And I suppose you had an affair with her."
"Gee, honey. I'd have to look it up."
I caught her fist about five inches from my eye. "You bahstid," she said. [p. 32]
Of course, MacDonald cannot be accused of being a superficial writer! Consider these penetrating philosophical musings:
"I own some Sears electric clippers with plastic gadgets of various shapes which fit on the clippers to keep you from accidentally peeling your hair off down to the sukull. I find that long hair is a damned nuisance on boats, on the beach, and in the water. So when it gets long enough to start to make me aware of it, I clipper it off, doing the sides in the mirror and the back by feel. The sun bleaches my hair and burns it and dries it out. And the salt water makes it feel stiff and look like some kind of Dynel. Were I going to keep it long, I would have to take care of it. That would mean tonics and lotions and special shampoos. That would mean brushing it and combing it a lot more than I do and somehow fastening it out of the way in a stiff breeze." [pp. 123-124]
But perhaps Travis, our hero, is at his most debonair when he's beating the snot out of recalicrant women:
"I smiled at her, pulling her a half-step closer and said, 'If you get loud and say nasty things, dear, if you get on my nerves, I can hold you like this, and I can take this free hand and make a big fist like this, and I can give you one little pop right here that will give you a nose three inches wide and a quarter inch high.'
'Please,' she said in a rusty little voice.
'You can get a job as a clown. Or you can see if you can find a surgeon willing to try to rebuild it.'" [p. 136]
In sum, if you're in the mood for sappy, incoherent, misogynistic, and, well, all-around cruddy fiction, you can't go wrong with the peerless Travis McGee!
(The author, John MacDonald, died in 1986, and therefore -- it tickles me to announce -- will not be inflicting any more of these books on us! God be praised!)
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I just can't stop reading these things
rating: 4
Another Travis McGee book. This one seemed to take forever to get going, to set up the problem, and then as soon as you understood the problem, MacDonald popped you a good one, and the rest of the book was a catch-up from that moment. But that's the simple "mystery" of this McGee novel, and as such is never that special. The attraction of McGee, at least in these later books, are MacDonald's comments within them on the human condition, both specifically with regard to the Quixotish nature of McGee, as well as a general feeling of malaise which centers around money and violence. The McGee novels are as much about philosophy--ethics, particularly--as they are about mystery. Or maybe the point is that the philosophy is the mystery, and as we get to know McGee better, we understand more about his philosophy. I seem to remember the Spenser novels of Robert Parker to be similar to this as well. Are there other mystery series in which the character growth is as important, if not more so, than the particular story of the time?
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