Ross MacDonald
| Ross Macdonald | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | Kenneth Millar December 13, 1915 Los Gatos, California |
| Died | July 11, 1983 (aged 67) Santa Barbara, California |
| Pen name | John Macdonald, John Ross Macdonald, Ross Macdonald |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American–Canadian |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan |
| Genre | Crime fiction |
| Spouse | Margaret Millar |
Ross Macdonald is the main pseudonym that was used by the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar (/ˈmɪlər/; December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983). He is best known for his series of hardboiled novels set in southern California and featuring private detective Lew Archer.
The Lew Archer novels are widely recognized as some of the most significant American mystery books of the mid-20th Century, bringing unprecedented levels of psychological insight and literary sophistication to the genre. John Leonard, longtime critic for The New York Times Book Review, declared that Macdonald had surpassed the limits of crime fiction to become "a major American novelist"
Brought up in Ontario, Macdonald eventually settled in California, where he died in 1983.
Millar was born in Los Gatos, California, and raised in his parents' native Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, where he started college. When his father abandoned his family unexpectedly, Macdonald lived with his mother and various relatives, moving several times by his sixteenth year.
In Canada, he met and married Margaret Sturm in 1938. They had a daughter, Linda, who died in 1970. He began his career writing stories for pulp magazines. Millar attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and a PhD in literature. While doing graduate study, he completed his first novel, The Dark Tunnel, in 1944. For his first four novels, he used his real name. After serving at sea as a naval communications officer from 1944 to 1946, Millar returned to Michigan, where he obtained his PhD degree.
For his fifth novel, in 1949, he wrote under the name John Macdonald, in order to avoid confusion with his wife, who was achieving her own success writing as Margaret Millar. He then changed his pen name briefly to John Ross Macdonald, before settling on Ross Macdonald, in order to avoid being confused with fellow mystery writer John D. MacDonald, who wrote under his real name. Millar would use the pseudonym "Ross Macdonald" on all his fiction from the mid-fifties forward.
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