Peby Jn on L. Breen Pals A new collection of the correspondence between Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald chronicles the platonic love affair between two gifted, m o c . o t o h p k c o t caring, and profoundly decent people. S i 26 MYSTERY SCENE udora Welty, one of the most cele - brated American writers of her time, E and Kenneth Millar, better known to mystery readers as Ross Macdonald, first corresponded during one of the profes - sionally best and personally worst periods of Millar’s life. On June 1, 1969, William Gold - man’s review of The Goodbye Look appeared on the front page of the New York Times Book Review , proclaiming the series about private eye Lew Archer “the finest detective novels ever written by an American,” and an ac - companying profile by John Leonard pro - nounced Macdonald “a major American novelist.” In November of the following year, Millar’s daughter Linda, who seemed to have achieved stability and contentment after a tragic and tumultuous early life, died suddenly, leaving behind a husband and young son. On May 3, 1970, Macdonald wrote Welty characters in her recent novel Losing Bat - very similar. She wrote back, delighted with a “fan letter” (his phrase) inspired by her fa - tles shared a “recognizable North American this fresh idea. They went on to exchange vorable reference to him in a New York Times language” with his Canadian aunts and books and opinions, encouragements and interview. He observed that the Mississippi uncles whose “words, imagery, jokes” were commiserations. In 1971, it was Welty who FROM ROBERT GODDARD,GODDARD, INTERNATIONALLYINTERNAINTERNATIONALLLLYY BESTSELLINGBESTSELLINGTSELLING AUTHORAUTHOR A daringdaring youngyoung BritishBritishitish pilot is sweptswept intointo the worldwororld of internationalinternationalnational intrigueintrigueigue in post-WWI ParisParis iinn this brbrilliantilliantilliant histhistoricalorical thrthrilleriller “Robert Goddard is the master of complex, tricky thrillersthrillers that dazzle with surprises . Stellar.” —Sydney Morning Herald “A“A sly, highbrow take on the espionage thriller.” —Kirkus Reviews “Enjoyable . Goddard evokes time and place with an expert hand.”—Publishersers WeeklyWeekly “Dashed good yarn-spanning.” THE MYSTERIOUS PRESS —Toronto—TTTorontooronto Star an imprint of Grove AAtlantictlantic Distributed by Publishers Group WWestest groveatlantic.com would praise Ross Macdonald in a front- erary heroes F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford page New York Times Book Review essay on Margaret Millar Madox Ford. Apart from the literary, com - The Underground Man . The Lew Archer mon interests included nature, dogs, birds, novel that followed, Sleeping Beauty (1973), jazz, and politics. would be dedicated to Eudora Welty. What The first indications of Macdonald’s grad - began as a dialogue based on common in - ual memory loss come as early as 1974, when terests and mutual admiration gradually he seems to repeat information that he has morphed into a platonic love affair between already written in earlier letters. He first men - two gifted, caring, and profoundly decent tions it explicitly in a letter of August 15, 1976: people. The exchange of letters would be “a failure of the memory function which is two-sided until early in 1980 when Mac - probably within normal limits for my age but donald’s advancing Alzheimer’s disease made which, because I had had a nearly perfect it impossible for him to write. Welty con - memory, scared and depressed me.” The tinued to write to him and visited him in diagnosis of Alzheimer’s did not come until Santa Barbara one last time in 1982, the year 1981, and it was first revealed publicly by before his death. Margaret Millar in a Los Angeles Times in - Third party to this benign triangle was terview the following year. Welty’s unfinished Macdonald’s wife and fellow novelist Mar - short story “Henry,” which deals fictionally garet Millar. She was surely aware of how In one letter, she remarks on her pleasure with their relationship and his Alzheimer’s, close the friendship of Macdonald and Welty at rereading Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in appears as an appendix to the book . was, and how important to them. She is men - White after going through a mixed bag of tioned frequently, always lovingly and re - Pulitzer Prize submissions. When Macdon - The Welty-Macdonald spectfully, in the letters. The two women ald was compiling his anthology Great Sto - were friendly and admiring of each other’s ries of Suspense , she was asked for sugges - correspondence shows how much work. Some of the editors’ connecting nar - tions and was happy to oblige. She was is lost when people stop rative, including a description by Welty of especially pleased Dick Francis would be in - Margaret’s cruel remarks to her husband cluded, and on the publishers’ insistence on writing letters. Can even the during that final visit, show Margaret as a having something by Macdonald himself, mercurial and often difficult person, caus - she wrote that not to do so “would be like most scrupulously preserved Gershwin having a party and emails or blog posts equal the having everybody else play but not play himself….” humanity and style of great letters Welty herself had at least one venture as a mystery by great letter writers ? writer: the comic novella The Ponder Heart (1954) is ar - Among its other virtues, the Welty-Mac - guably a crime story and cer - donald correspondence shows how much is tainly a mystery, structured lost when people stop writing letters. Can to withhold the solution to even the most scrupulously preserved emails the end. Over a quarter of or blog posts equal the humanity and style the wordage is devoted to a of great letters by great letter writers? This tic and temperamental, similar to her quiet murder trial, one of the funniest in all liter - is one of the finest books in an unusually rich and gentle husband in many ways but com - ature from its very first witness, a blind small- year for biographical and critical works in pletely different in others. An odd match, town coroner. the mystery field. The Edgar, should it win perhaps, but there is little doubt that the Both Welty and Macdonald are superb one, would presumably go to the editors, marriage was solid and that the two Millars correspondents. Quotable passages abound. Welty biographer Suzanne Marrs and Mac - were devoted to each other, and had many Macdonald on aging: “[Margaret] will meet donald biographer Tom Nolan, who have common interests apart from writing and age head-on, and refuses to grow old with - expertly provided the necessary bridges and family: exercise, ecology, birdwatching, court out a struggle. I am likely to grow old with - identifications to shape the material into a watching. During the time covered by the out knowing it.” Welty on an odd display of rewarding whole. In effect, Macdonald and letters, Margaret had to deal with the death paintings in a Texas museum: “…[T]here Welty have collaborated on a posthumous of a daughter and her own severe health was a beautiful line of Mary Cassatts going epistolary novel, one that delivers through problems and writer’s block, as well as the up the staircase wall, that you couldn’t re - reality the emotional power and truthful - diminishment of her husband. Viewing her ally look at, for being too close and for hav - ness of great fiction. I think they would en - as the villain of the piece would be unfair. ing to go on upstairs—the only way you could joy that. l Eudora Welty’s interest in mystery fic - have seen them less well would be by slid - tion long antedated her discovery of Ross ing down the bannisters.” Many friends and Jon L. Breen is a two-time winner of the Mys - Macdonald. Some of her favorite writers in colleagues are mentioned, with rarely a bad tery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for the genre were Julian Symons, Agatha word to say about anybody, save some crit - his criticism. His most recent novel is Prob - Christie, Elizabeth Daly, and Ngaio Marsh. ics and biographers who did wrong by lit - able Clause (Five Star). 28 MYSTERY SCENE.