I highly recommend you start out with “The Deep Blue Good-by” (1964) to get a taste of his excellent work.įrom MacDonald, I went on to become a fan of Carl Hiaasen, another incredible writer with Florida roots.
As much as I wish he were still writing and helping us make sense of the world, I’m glad he is not witnessing the divisive state of politics in Florida today. MacDonald could wonderfully entertain and subtly preach at the same time about the ills of society whether it be about corruption, racial injustice or the need to protect the environment. His Travis McGee series opened me up to a world filled with reality, great aspirations, and a lot of shady folks. I might not be a writer were it not for the world MacDonald described around Fort Lauderdale in the 1960-1980s. Since high school, I have been a fan of John D. On my journey to become a writer, I had a lot of inspirations. Let me step back just a bit and also cover some of my influences from South Florida. I had already started writing by this time, but as I traveled in France, England, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Germany my desire to write became overwhelming. I was also able to spend five years abroad working in Europe and picked up a fair amount of French and a bit of Italian as well. That was much more to my liking and resulted in my really getting to know conservation issues and the western United States. This time in conservation of natural and cultural resources.
Upon graduation, I resumed a career as a federal bureaucrat but in a very different field. I then completed a graduate degree from Texas A&M University and worked for the Texas A&M Sea Grant Program, doing research on coastal issues. I finally quit that job because I realized that while the human components fascinated me as a future writer, doing tons of paperwork was not for me. It was then that I first started thinking about Florida and its interesting relationship with Cuba. I was the only Spanish-speaking employee, so I also took claims from some “Marielitos.” That too was educational.
It gave me insights into the lives of people with a wide range of income and educational levels. I had to determine the validity of common law marriages, who was the actual parent of dependents, had a person really retired and things like that. It taught me a lot about people and relationships. I never really liked the job, but, along with a decent paycheck, it served me well in one respect. Upon graduating from Lamar University after “conforming.”
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