Jack Reacher vs. Travis McGee

Yesterday the new movie, "Jack Reacher," starring Tom Cruise, debuted across the country.  Shot mostly in Pittsburgh, the movie is the first attempt to put on film the character of Lee Child's ex-Army military police investigator.  Through 17 novels, Lee Child has put this character on the contemporary map of mass market fiction/mystery.

In an introduction to a re-issued paperback of the first of the 17 novels, author Lee Child gives some background to his creation of the tough guy character.  In particular, I was struck by his story of getting on a plane for a return home to England after a vacation in Yucatan, Mexico.  Looking for something to read on the plane, Child buys "The Longly Silver Rain," by John D. MacDonald.  He knew nothing about MacDonald, nor about the central character, Travis McGee.  "Silver Rain" was the 21st, and last, in a series of novels about the boat bum from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 

Child describes how reading that book -- and every one of the others in the series -- affected him:  "Nobody needs me to sing MacDonald's praises, but that yard of books did more for me than provide excellent entertainment.  For some reason the McGee books spoke to me like textbooks.  I felt I could see what MacDonald was doing, and why, and how, as if I could see the skeleton beneath the skin....  I wanted to do what MacDonald had done."  Several years later, when Lee Child was fired from his job as an award-winning producer with a British TV network, he decided to change careers and write novels.  With Travis McGee in his memory, he created the character Jack Reacher.

This may be all academic to you, but to me, the MacDonald novels, and the character Travis McGee, are an important part of the background of my upbringing.  I've read all 21 of the novels -- about six or seven times.  I began reading them in high school, and every couple of years I get the urge to read them all again.  For some reason, MacDonald's style of writing, and what he tried to convey, made a great impression on me.  John D. MacDonald is mostly forgotten now, but in his day was one of the great men of "pulp fiction," along with Raymond Chandler and his iconic Philip Marlowe, and Robert B. Parker's Spenser.  Best selling novelist Carl Hiaasen has commented that MacDonald's McGee series of books are so much more than private eye mysteries.  Another great novelist, Pete Hamil, calls John D. MacDonald "one of the great American novelists."  Stephen King calls MacDonald "the great entertainer of our time, and a mesmerizing storyteller."  Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., once wrote, "To diggers a thousand years from now, the words of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen." 

For those who know Reacher, and don't know McGee, let me offer my own comparison of these two quintessinal American characters.

Jack Reacher (17 books by Lee Child [pseudonym of Jim Grant], 1994-present)

Travis McGee (21 books by John D. MacDonald, 1964-1986).  All the titles in the series have a color.

Description:  JR is 6'5", 250 lbs. of solid muscle.

TM is 6'4", between 212-205 lbs, sinewy, cat-quick.  He has to work to keep up his physical skills, usually by swimming.  In the last book a girl friend has him doing tai-chi "as you get older."

Family:  JR's father was American, mother was French, father served in Marine Corps.  Brother Joe was killed working for the U.S. Treasury Department in the first book, "Killing Floor." 

Little is revealed about TM's parents.  A brother Frank is referenced in the last book as having "died young."

Background:  JR was a "military brat," graduate of West Point, entered Military Police, rising to rank of Major, leaving the service after 13 years in the downsizing following the first Iraq War.  Received Silver Star, Purple Heart, and other decorations. 

TM was a college (unknown) graduate, served in U.S. Army, reached rank of Sergeant, received Purple Heart in fighting in a war (Korea?).  Played pro football at tight end for Miami Dolphins until he blew out his knee. 

Residence:  JR is a self-described "hobo," with no address.  Travels by bus with no ID or driver's licence, an expired passport, a toothbrush, and an ATM debit card.

TM lives on a 52 foot houseboat, "The Busted Flush," he won in a 36 hour poker game (he refused the offer of the owner's Brazilian mistress).  Moored at Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Employment:  JR has no work experience since leaving the army.  He helps people in distress.

TM  is a self-described "salvage consultant."   He is a last resort for people who have lost things they cannot find or recover.  He pays his own expenses, but keeps 50% of what he recovers.  He only works when he needs the money or likes the people who ask his help.  He says he is living in retirement on "the installment plan."

Skills:  JR knows hand to hand combat, sharp police investigator, every known hand gun and rifle, world-class sharpshooter, observer of humankind.

TM is a world-class con man, fast talker, capable around boats, and of using his wits as much as his fists.  A smart-ass, with a sarcastic sense of humor.

Girl friend or wife:  JR has neither.

TM had many girl friends and lovers over the series, who usually only live on his houseboat with him until they get healed or are irritated by his lack of commitment.  In "The Green Ripper" he described his girl friend Gretel Howard as "common law wife," when she is gravely ill in a hospital (and subsequently dies).

Children:  JR has none.

TM {spoiler alert} has none, until in the last 15 pages of the last book in the series, "The Lonely Silver Rain," he meets up with Jean Killian, a 17 year old high school graduate from Youngstown, Ohio, who stalks McGee.  She reveals that McGee is her father, when her mother, Puss Killian, fled her husband, was saved from suicide on a Florida beach by McGee, and lived with McGee for a couple of months (in "Pale Grey for Guilt").  It's obvious that the author, John D. MacDonald, planned this ending to the series, with a almost-50 content McGee now a father of a "horse bum" whose college education for veterinary medicine he is paying for.

Friends:  JR has none, after his brother is killed in the first book.

TM's best friend is Meyer, a world-class semi-retired economist.  He also resides on a boat in Bahia Mar, the "John Maynard Keynes," until it is blown up in "Cinnamon Skin."  He then purchases the "Thorstein Veblem."  Meyer has a Ph.D., and has superb listening skills.  He only goes by "Meyer," though in "Pale Grey for Guilt" he does present a business card with the name "G. Ludweg Meyer."  He is a great side-kick to Travis McGee.  Their discussions allow author MacDonald to meditate and ruminate on all the ills and conditions of the human race, Florida, politics, the environment and women.  TM also has many acquaintances in the Bahia Mar boating scene.

Spirituality:  JR has none.  No religious notes.

TM has none.  In one book there is a description of a funeral service on a beach.  TM has no concept of life after death.  He comes to see that he is most alive when he is faced with his own death.

Style of writing:  JR is in first person.  Terse.  Short.  Fragments, No flourishes.  Sometimes verges into implausibility of the plot coincidences JR runs into.

MacDonald's style is volubule, with long, lengthy and luxurious descriptions of places, minor characters, scenes, and whatever comes to mind.  TM is also in first person.  The reader is allowed to see the world through the mind of McGee, and his many conversations with Meyer.  Also good, convoluted plotting, but never to the point that it gets away from the reader.

Other media:  JR is done in contemporary style with the just released, "Jack Reacher," starring Tom Cruise.  This movie was originally called "One Shot," after the novel it is based on. 

TM has not been treated well by Hollywood, either on the movie side or TV side.  Rod Tayler played McGee in "Darker than Amber" in 1970, and Sam Elliott played him in a made-for-television movie of "The Empty Copper Sea."  Both were deservedly flops.  In the last year or so, there have been brief stories of actor Leonardo DiCaprio's interest in bringing Travis McGee to life in a major motion picture, but nothing has been set.

Books sold:  JR is a New York Times best seller.

John D. MacDonald (sometimes writing under other pen names) had a long and prolific career writing westerns and short stories, before creating Travis McGee in 1964.  His most famous story has been translated into film twice, under the title "Cape Fear."  He never had the national fame that Lee Child has, but was revered among fans and fellow authors. 

Conclusion:  As you might gather from the above, my favorite is Travis McGee.  MacDonald created "an indelible character," in the words of Carl Hiaasen.  He is clearly a product of his time, the late 60s and into the 70s and 80s, yet he is also for the ages.  He is part rebel, part philosopher, part rugged hero, but never takes himself seriously.  Here's a paragraph from the book jacket of "The Green Ripper."

"I'm Travis McGee.  An artifact, genus boat bum, a pale-eyed, shambling, gangling knuckly man, without enough unscarred hide left to make a decent lampshade.  Watchful appraiser of the sandy-rumpled beach ladies.  Creaking knight errant, yawning at the thought of the next dragon.   They don't make grails the way they used to."

There is also an age-specific cynicism which McGee lives and breathes.  From "The Deep Blue Goodbye."

“I do not function too well on emotional motivations. I am wary of them. And I am wary of a lot of other things, such as plastic credit cards, payroll deductions, insurance programs, retirement benefits, savings accounts, Green Stamps, time clocks, newspapers, mortgages, sermons, miracle fabrics, deodorants, check lists, time payments, political parties, lending libraries, television, actresses, junior chambers of commerce, pageants, progress, and manifest destiny.
"I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it.”

MacDonald paints a wonderful sense of place, in McGee's Fort Lauder-damn-dale Florida.  Hiassen, a native Floridian himself, captures it when he says, "Most readers loved MacDonald's work because he told a rip-roaring yarn.  I loved it because he was the first modern writer to nail Florida dead-center, to capture all its languid sleaze, racy sense of promise, and breath-grabbing beauty."  MacDonald's commentary on the environment and the Everglades, in 1965(!!!), from "Bright Orange for the Shroud":

"Now, of course, having failed in every attempt to subdue the Glades by frontal attack, we are slowly killing it off by tapping the River of Grass. In the questional name of progress, the state [of Florida] in its vast wisdom lets every two-bit developer divert the flow into the drag-lined canals that give him 'waterfront' lots to sell.  As far north as Corkscrew Swamp, virgin stands of ancient bald cypress are dying.  All the area north of Copeland had been logged out, and will never come back.  As the Glades dry, the big fires come with cincreasing frequency.  The ecology is changing with egret colonies dwindling, mullet getting scarece, mangrove dying of new diseases born of dryness." 

Given Lee Child's admission that Travis McGee made an impression on him before he began writing the Reacher novels, it's clear that Child wanted to go MacDonald one better.  McGee lives on a boat; Reacher has no home.  McGee has no known employment, except for occasionally making money on his salvage consultant adventures; Reacher makes no money whatsoever.  McGee lives a well-to-do life among the rich on his custom houseboat, always flying first class; Reacher is a hobo/bum.  McGee has no wife, lots of girl friends, and one best friend; Reacher has no friends whatsoever.

Reacher is a McGee stripped beyond basics. All you get is the action of this wandering ex-Army investigator.  And a lot of bad attitude.

Finally, both characters face moral issues.  Following the older private eyes, Travis McGee is faced with moral decisions in shades of grey.  Jack Reacher is also in this vein, one who doesn't worry about the law but only in doing what is "right."  But Travis McGee has an introspective side,  which Reacher doesn't, and is skeptical of all moral motivations, especially his own.  And Meyer is a good philosophical foil, with his insights into human nature and his economics Ph.D.  I often quote "Meyer's law," which goes something like this:  "In any moral conflict, the more difficult choice is the right choice." 

Enjoy the "Jack Reacher" movie and all 17 of the books.  But if you want to really be snagged, to be reading at 2:30 a.m. and  just can't put the book down, find a John D. MacDonald novel, any of them, and in particular any of the colors of the Travis McGee series, at your local used book store.