Customer Reviews

Damned

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wow! My first MacDonald book, and I was hardly expecting it to be so good. His writing is a couple of notches above most anyone else. I just finished a William Campbell Gault book, for instance, and while he writes smoothly and entertainly, his characters are cardboard. MacDonald creates real people with serious depth and emotions going on inside. His only fault is in occasional overwriting when he tries to be poetic -- but most of the time he succeeds in that also. Exciting to think that there are so many of his books left to read. I have read that his early non-Travis McGee novels are the best, and perhaps this is an example of that. But as good as this one is, it is difficult to think of anything he writes being bad.

John D Macdonald wrote many classic novels in his life but this was not one of them. I would rank it as a good quick read (only about 175 pages) and while it is not that memorable, it contains some good insights into the human mind.

As a river crossing in Mexico, a string of people are delayed and have to wait for the crossing to be made available to them. The book looks at a number of these people and how they reached this point in their lives. I think Macdonald had a movie in mind when he wrote this book as I think the book (if it hadn't been already) could be a good movie.

Not his greatest, but a good time-filler.

I'm a long time MacDonald fan, but THE DAMNED is on the heavy side of prose. It may have been ahead of it's time or influenced by movies at the end of the noir period while MacDonald was still polishing his skills as a writer.
Dark, haunted characters caught in Mexico, a couple on their honeymoon attract attention by the incessant arguments. A woman of the night who stumbles across the narrator for meaningless contact above the sheets, it's too hot for anything else.
MacDonald rescues the participants with finite details that pull you into their lives against your will, fate gives them a second chance.
Nash Black, author whose books are also available in Kindle editions.