John D. MacDonald: "Nothing Must Change" (Redbook 1951); "Manhattan Horse Opera" (Black Mask 1947, as reprinted in EQMM, 1953, as "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose")
MacDonald demonstrates his mastery of various modes of short fiction between these two stories, originally published four years apart, one in Redbook, which at this point was aiming itself at younger married couples, while still broadly fitting into the dynamics of a slick magazine with a largely female readership, the other in Black Mask, not quite the birthplace of noirish crime fiction writing, but as close as any single publication came to being so. (Spell- checkers on blogging software hate the the word "noirish".) "Nothing" involves the reunion of two women friends, one now one of the key visual arts critics of the time, the other having settled in as the wife of a bohemian younger painter, a bit of a smart-ass but very devoted to his work. His wife isn't so very sure of the quality of his work. Things go better than she fears, though the degree to which she has subsumed herself into his somewhat iffy career, and unsettled by that predicament, while feeling herself, to say the least, underaccomplished in the face of both these people important to her, and afraid her old friend will and that she won't tell him he has no shot, is well drawn.
The Black Mask story is a good, late example of what the writers for that magazine could do, and JDM was not one of the less talented ones, for all that he came in in its very last years; a relatively minor but reasonably canny functionary in the underground sports betting world of Brooklyn gets caught in the switches when smoother operators set him up for a very hard fall at the hands of much uglier thugs; things aren't going his way at all. The ending is not necessarily one you'd guess was coming, but it works. Even relatively young JDM knew how to bring a verisimilitude to his work that even some of the greater pros who were his peers could envy.
Robert Arthur: "The Man with the Golden Hand", Bluebook 1953, was a gifted editor and a good writer, but as with this example of his Murchison Morks loose series of fantasies, could lay the shtick on a bit heavily at times. I remains an amusing story, while pushing its comic aspects a bit hard, and there are better examples among the Morks tall tales narratives (Morks isn't so much a recurring character as a narrator to others), but one could see why this story nonetheless led off the fiction contents of this issue. Redbook and Bluebook, as the titles might suggest, had begun their long runs as stablemates, but by the early '50s had been published by different organizations for some time, and Bluebook was definitely and squarely aimed at male readers, hence the fanboy article on Hemingway's machismo in this issue, as well. But they still weren't afraid of women writers contributing, and the near-vignette "Relic" by Anne Gibbons does a relative good job of setting up a rather grim discovery in the life of its boy protagonist, in the midst of his not terribly nurturing life.
Likewise, what little I've turned up about Val Duncan, whose EQMM reprint story "Emerald Bait" was originally in Esquire, and its slick origins and relatively clever resolution don't give us any more clues than I've been able to turn up otherwise whether Duncan was a male or female writer, with its biter-bit plot and reasonably deft battle of the sexes execution. It, too, won't rock anyone's world, but you might get a chuckle out of the last little twist. One could see why editor Frederic Dannay, half of "Ellery Queen"'s two-cousins team on the writing side, dug it.
- Redbook [Vol. 97 No. 2, June 1951] ed. Wade H. Nichols (McCall Corporation, 25¢, quarto, cover by Zoltan Farkas) [] (Full Text)
- 2 · The Lion’s Roar · [uncredited] · cl
- 3 · Between the Lines · [uncredited] · cl
- 4 · Letters to the Editor · The Readers · lc
- 6 · Kids’ Haven · Bradley Smith · ar
- 8 · Pictures of the Month · [uncredited] · mr
- 10 · Four Other Fine Films · [uncredited] · mr
- 12 · Help Them to Help Themselves · Irma Simonton Black · ar
- 13 · What’s New in Records · [uncredited] · rv
- 14 · Tops in the Shops · [uncredited] · ms
- 20 · News About Medicine · [uncredited] · cl
- 21 · They Can’t Live on Air! · The Editor · ed
- 22 · ; illustrated by Edwin Georgi
- 24 · How Frightened Are Your Children? · Stanley Frank · ar
- 26 · Nothing Must Change · John D. MacDonald · ss; illustrated by Mac Conner
- 28 · The Three Lives of Janet Leigh · Lloyd Shearer · ar [Ref. Janet Leigh] [nearly lifelong media crush...]
- 31 · Let’s Abolish Report Cards! · Arthur D. Morse · ar
- 32 · Little Arthur · Rosemary Taylor · ss; illustrated by Robert Patterson
- 34 · Can Vets Save Your Pets? · Clive Howard · ar
- 36 · Second Magic · Jean Kinkead · ss; illustrated by Gwen Fremlin
- 38 · The Devil and Lynn · Selwyn James · ar
- 41 · Psychologist’s Casebook: No. 14 · Dr. John R. Martin · ar
- 42 · With This Ring · Adele S. Osherson · ss; illustrated by Al Buell
- 44 · In Our Time: No. 7—This Was It! · Collie Small · ar
- 46 · The Bippolo Seed · Dr. Seuss · ss; illustrated by Dr. Seuss
- 48 · Government Girls · William Lindsay Gresham · ar
- 50 · Young Folks at Home: When the Livin’ Is Easy · Charlotte Montgomery · ar
- 52 · Confession · Alec Rackowe · vi; illustrated by Milton Wolsky
- 54 · They Play for Pay · [uncredited] · ms
- 59 · Television · [uncredited] · cl
- 66 · We Are Proud to Announce · [uncredited] · cl
- 73 · Books · [uncredited] · rc
- 74 · Fashions · [uncredited] · cl
- 96 · Camp, School Directory · [uncredited] · ms
- 101 · Flight from Scandal · Paul Ernst · na; illustrated by Herbert Saslow
Details supplied by Steve Scott & Joe Koomen.
Bluebook [Vol. 97 No. 3, July 1953] ed. Maxwell Hamilton (McCall Corporation, 25¢, 128pp, quarto, cover by Robert Doares) [] Can be read here.
- ifc. · Purely Personal · The Editor · cl [Ref. John Novotny, Michael Sheridan, René Belbenoit, J. L. Bouma, Harold Mehling & Harry Kursh]; profiles and photos of John Novotny, Michael Sheridan, René Belbenoit; profiles only of J.L. Bouma, Harold Mehling, Harry Kursh.
- 1 · Coming Up · [uncredited] · cl
- 2 · Pro and Con · The Readers · lc
- _2 · [letter from Roslyn, NY] · Tom Solters · lt
- _2 · [letter from Albany, NY] · Preston M. Evans · lt
- _2 · [letter from Oslo, Norway] · Capt. Ole Bull · lt
- _2 · [letter from Auburn, CA] · J. W. Prouty · lt
- _3 · [letter from Bellevue, WA] · George Brommers · lt
- _3 · [letter from San Francisco, CA] · Duane Otis · lt
- _3 · [letter from Delta, CO] · Kenney Linn · lt
- _3 · [letter from Taylorsville, IL] · Bernard Coady · lt
- _3 · [letter from Dallas, TX] · Carl Snodgrass · lt
- _3 · [letter from Toledo, OH] · D. B. Seem · lt
- 4 · Thinking Out Loud · Maxwell Hamilton · ed
- 5 · What Next! · [uncredited] · cl
- 6 · Ernest Hemingway—Muy Hombre! · Jackson Burke · ar [Ref. Ernest Hemingway]
- 11 · The Man with the Golden Hand [Murchison Morks] · Robert Arthur · ss; illustrated by Hank Berger
- 16 · Second-Hand Dream · Frank O’Rourke · ss; illustrated by Miller Pope
- 23 · One Was a Murderer · Luther Locke · ts Exciting Western January 1949; illustrated by Harry Rosenbaum
- 28 · Wagons—Roll! · J. L. Bouma · nv; illustrated by Bob Riger
- 38 · The Biggest Small Business in the World · Harold Mehling & Harry Kursh · ar
- 45 · Cecil and Benny · John Novotny · ss; illustrated by Frank Lacano
- 50 · Relic · Ann Gibbons · vi; illustrated by Tom Edwards
- 52 · Captain Streeter vs. The City of Chicago · Horace Bailey Brown · ar
- 54 · A Song Was Born… · [uncredited] · ms
- 61 · Hair the Color of Blood [Milo March] · M. E. Chaber · ss; illustrated by Al Tarter
- 68 · Let’s Live in a Trailer · Michael Sheridan · ar
- 74 · Mountain Man · Tom Roan · ss; illustrated by Dave Stone
- 81 · America’s First Aviator · Theodore Taylor · ms
- 83 · The Big Mogul of Muscle · Pat Ryan · ar
- 88 · Wordly Wise: Ballyhoo · Webb B. Garrison · cl
- 91 · To Our Readers · The Editors · ed
- 92 · Forbidden Trails · René Belbenoit · na; illustrated by Ray Houlihan
- ibc. · Relax and Enjoy · The Editors · rv
Details supplied by Douglas Greene. |
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