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Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything

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THE GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH AND EVERYTHING

An unusual book by John D. MacDonald, famous author of hard-boiled fiction. This one is light as a souffle, funny and moving. I enjoyed several of his hard-boiled stories, though some were rather too gloomy and violent for my taste, but this one is a delight.

Timid young Kirby Winter's Uncle Omar Krepps lived an ordinary life until he suddenly started acquiring great wealth, quit his job, and spent his life traveling and practicing amateur magic. Uncle Omar dies and the world besieges the young Kirby, the sole surviving relative, who worked in one of his uncle's companies: his job was making large donations to worthy charities and he therefore knows that all his uncle's fortune has been given away. Nobody believes him, of course, least of all a scheming couple who will use every trick in the book to get their hands on all that wealth.

The young man does get something, however: a sealed letter to be opened in a year's time, and a gold watch. Accidentally, Kirby discovers Uncle Omar's secret - the gold watch can stop time! Aided by an array of gutsy and fun-loving girls, Kirby struggles to keep the secret from the scheming couple (and everyone else). In the process, he discovers some hidden strength of character, loses his virginity and learns to have a ball.

A wonderful fantasy, an adventure story rather than your average science-fiction. As another reviewer here eloquently put it, like "Back to the Future". No explicit bedroom scenes, foul language or blood and gore. A true delight. Personally, I think this is worth all MacDonald's other stories put together.

John D. MacDonald is one of the acknowledged masters of the Hard-Boiled detective genre, both with his acclaimed Travis McGee series as well as his stand alone fiction.

This book marks a major departure for MacDonald-a foray into fantasy fiction. While MacDonald has traveled well away from his home field to write this one, he brings his considerable skills for characterization and plot with him and adds a true sense of whimsy and comedy to the mix with tremendous results.

Kirby Winter's multimillionaire Uncle Omar has just died as this story opens. Always a very eccentric sort of character, Omar has produced a great fortune during his lifetime-and employed Kirby, his only blood relative, to give it all away to charity. No one really understands this, however, and vultures are circling over the supposedly rich estate.

Kirby is a sort of pathetic character-a bit of a wimp, really-until he gets his Uncles only real bequest-a gold watch. However, as Kirby soon discovers, this is no ordinary watch. It is actually a sort of time machine. Kirby, along with a cute young thing acquired along the way, works to foil the bad guys and protect his girl as best he can. The ensuing adventures are a true delight to behold.

This is superior beach fare type reading-light reading entertainment of the highest order.

One warning is in order-This book DOES NOT represent the norm for MacDonald, whose work is usually very gritty, dark and violent. One would be well advised to keep this in mind if that is not your sort of thing if the later is not your cup of tea.

An undetectable edge on the rest of the world -- everyone's dream? In _The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything_, the late Mr. MacDonald turned his mastery of plotting and characterization toward "what-if" fiction, and more than succeeded. Lighthearted, yet never frothy, this story gave me more grins per page than any book in a long time. Even better, after I turned the last page, I was left with my imagination in overdrive. Highly recommended to those who don't like techie sci-fi or magic fantasy, but would like a dose of snickering non-reality. Like _Back to the Future_, but much better

The book is one of those you can't put down once you start reading. Excellent story and characters will have you hungry for what is next. One of the most entertaining reads I have ever had. I grinned so much my head hurt.

When a young man is left only a gold watch by his millionaire uncle he is disappointed. Then he discovers that it can stop time. When he tries experiamenting with it he finds himself in a number of predicaments. Once his secret is discovered he must dodge clever unscrupulous types that will stop at nothing to get their hands on the watch.

Several years ago they made a TV movie by the same name with Robert Hays, Pam Dauber, and Jill Ireland. It was a great transfer of the books best parts. A very funny comedy that I hope they put on video soon. Sadly I have never seen the movie on VHS or DVD. Be sure to read this book for a fun read. My hat's off to John D. MacDonald.

I have to admit right off that I am not a big John D. MacDonald fan. I have nothing against his writing but the particular genre he writes in is just not my cup of tea. The hard-boiled detective stories he turned out year after year just had no appeal. And that was the problem with this particular book in my case. A close friend of mine gave me this book in the early 1960s and she assured me that I would love it. I took the book, tossed it on a shelf where it sat for about three years. One Friday evening I spied it in its dusty corner, thought what the heck, and started reading. I did not put it down until Saturday morning when I came to the last page. I have read this work about ever two or three years since that time and enjoy each reading more than the last. My copy is literally falling apart and I will soon have to apply another layer of duct tape and more glue.

Now, readers of MacDonald books and fans of MacDonald take close note here...this is not like any other book he wrote! In libraries and books stores you will still find this one listed with the rest of the detective stories, crime, etc. but it is actually a science fiction fantasy work! And it is absolutely hilarious in many cases. Yes, it has cops and crooks, good guys and girls and bad, but we are not talking hardcore here at all. I am not at all sure how MacDonald pulled this off, but pull it off he did.

A young man, Kirby Winter has a multimillionaire Uncle by the name of Omar. The uncle dies and does not leave Kirby a cent, only an old gold pocket watch and a sealed letter which he cannot open for one year.

To flash forward a few pages, young Kirby finds out that through this watch he can stop time. He can more or less freeze things at a flick of his fingers, not being effected by the time stoppage himself. Of course these opens up endless possibilities for the author and believe me; the author has taken advantage of them.

This work is loaded with some of the quirkiest and eccentric characters of any work of fiction I have ever read. Our hero get involved with a horridly persistent journalist, mixed up in a massive police manhunt, goes up against a truly evil couple, some idiotic criminals and quite a line-up of girls.

Once the story gets started the action never ceases. There is chases, sex, love, danger, very, very strange situations and of course a humor that I had no idea lurked in the author's mind. Folks, this book is extremely funny!

This in many ways is a very light read, but on the other hand there are situations in it that will make you pause and think. As you read this work, you will get the overwhelming impression that MacDonald enjoyed writing every word of it and chuckled to himself as he crafted each line.

Do yourself a favor, dig this one up and give it a read. It is a bit different and an absolute hoot.

Most science-fiction readers have fantasized, themselves, about being able to stop time and also about being invisble. This book is a good story about someone who's able to stop time and the troubles it causes for him. The idea has been copied elsewhere (such as in Nicholson Baker's The Fermata) but this author does it well, and in a format that's appropriate for all ages.

This book is another masterpiece by MacDonald, who never fails to weave a mesmerizing story and write a enjoyable page turner. I strongly recommend this story to anyone who enjoys even the slightest fantastic fiction. The late, great storyteller left us with a wonderful library of literature with which to enjoy , and I think everyone should have the chance to read at least one of his books. So by all means do get and read this one.

As best I can recall, the 1980 TV adaptation of this book was my introduction to MacDonald's work. Fortunately the adaptation turned out to be unusually faithful to the text, and lived up to my recollection of the story as an enjoyable romp. The tone is lighthearted (unusually so for MacDonald), and Kirby Winter is quite different from Travis McGee, despite the fact that Kirby's uncle Omar was something of a "salvage expert" himself, with a reputation for fleecing con artists and other slick operators.

Kirby's got a lot of book-learning, and can give a very sophisticated impression, but he's actually an inexperienced klutz when it comes to women, as we learn right away when he literally trips over a table after drinking with Charla, a long-time (but not old) opponent of Kirby's formidable uncle Omar who has been working up to seducing Kirby as a ploy to learning Omar's secrets.

Kirby's phenomenal bad luck has struck with a vengeance as the story opens.

Superficially, Kirby seems to have been groomed as the heir apparent of his uncle Omar Krepps, self-made multimillionaire founder of Krepps Enterprises. Omar organized Kirby's college education, hired him upon graduation, and has directed him personally as part of OK Devices, a very small, clandestine program within the company ever since. Now the mysterious little man who has directed Kirby's life for so long is dead.

Over the years Kirby has worked for OK Devices, 27 million dollars have been funnelled into it from Krepps Enterprises. But instead of financial records the board of KE found books on sleight-of-hand. Furthermore, Wilma (per instructions) had a bonfire immediately after Omar's death, so the board of KE is now terrified of their tax liability if the missing OK Devices assets aren't located.

Unfortunately, the only things Omar left Kirby in his will were his gold pocket watch, a letter to be delivered a year after Omar's death, and a peck of trouble. Not only is the KE board convinced he and Wilma stole the money, but the con artists and thieves from whom Omar "salvaged" assets are convinced that Kirby knows Omar's professional secrets.

Uncle Omar (a self-made man who started life as a chemistry and physics teacher) seems to have felt that Kirby should prove himself. He's arranged a sink-or-swim final exam for Kirby, who'll have to figure out for himself how to establish his innocence and keep his uncle's old foes from eating him alive.

Kirby gets off to a slow start, but shows backbone when facing down the board of KE; there's gumption there. And when halfway through the book Kirby begins to cotton on to the method behind Omar's madness, the fun *really* begins.

Officially, GOLD WATCH is classified as a mystery, but could just as well have been labelled fantasy/science fiction (and in fact, that would've made more sense for the 1991 printing, which was packaged that way in all but name).

Drive-in totals (as movie reviewer Joe Bob Briggs would say):
- Mad scientist fu. (At least, the board of KE would say so if they really believed the ex-science teacher gave all the money away).
- An impressive number of foiled romantic encounters (derailed by everything from locking himself out of his room to the building being hit by an earthquake).
- Some sensual content. I've never known MacDonald to omit such scenes (even when they should've been cut as extraneous), and given Kirby's initial lack of self-confidence and emotional support, it's a legitimate story issue here.
- Practical joke fu.

Having never read anything previously by renowned author John D. MacDonald, I discovered his 1962 paperback "The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything" after reading about it in David Pringle's excellent overview volume "Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels." Writing about the novel in that volume, the British critic tells us that it is "an amusing romp," and MacDonald's "only full-length fantasy." There may perhaps be many readers who are surprised to hear of MacDonald being mentioned in the same sentence as the word "fantasy"; after all, he is an author more well known for almost 50 hard-boiled crime thrillers, not counting the 21-book series featuring his most famous character, Florida-based private investigator Travis McGee, which started in 1964. But in truth, MacDonald was, early in his career, a prodigious creator of sci-fi tales; between 1948 and '53, he penned almost 50 sci-fi short stories and two novels, "Wine of the Dreamers" and "Ballroom of the Skies." Still, as his only out-and-out fantasy, "TGTGWAE" should be of especial interest to his loyal fans.

In the book, we meet an interesting nebbish named Kirby Winters. At 32 years old, Kirby has had only one (disastrous) sexual encounter in his life. When we first meet him, his wealthy Uncle Omar has just passed away. Kirby had spent the previous 11 years traveling around the world and giving away around $27 million of his scientist uncle's money to undocumented charities, and now the IRS wants to know where the money has gone, as do the heads of Omar's corporation AND various criminal elements. To make matters worse for Kirby, his only inheritance from Omar turns out to be the gold watch of the title. But what a watch it is! With it, as Kirby soon learns (CAUTION: SPOILER AHEAD!), he is able to effectively stop time for one subjective hour, causing the universe to enter a red-lit stasis; in this stalled world, one hour of subjective time is equal to only 3/100 of a second! Imagine the possibilities for both mischief and personal gain! An "amusing romp" it surely is!

In actuality, the novel is a fantasy in more ways than one. It is a science fantasy (or what H.G. Wells used to call a "scientific romance"; Wells, by the way, as Pringle reminds us, wrote a hoot of a story called "The New Accelerator" in 1901 with a similar plot device) in which a miraculous gadget is created. It is also, most assuredly, a sex fantasy. In the novel, Kirby must deal with no less than four very sexual women: Charla Maria Markopoulo O'Rourke, an international criminal, as well as her gang; Betsy Alden, her blonde, hot-tempered niece; Wilma Farnham, Uncle Omar's prudish but lusty assistant; and finally, the "girl" of the book's title, 19-year-old Bonny Lee Beaumont, a backwoods Carolina stripper who initiates Kirby into the world of sex, thrills and fun. The book also strikes the reader as a wish-fulfillment fantasy and a revenge fantasy; indeed, the ability to make time stand practically still confers almost God-like powers on the increasingly self-assured Kirby Winters.

"The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything" is a terrific read, filled as it is with interesting characters, great imagination (MacDonald constantly surprises us with how thoroughly he has thought out the ramifications of making time stand still), many amusing lines and even some tough action sequences. Though the central plot device of time stasis is hardly an original one (besides that Wells story, as "The Science Fiction Encyclopedia" mentions, we must not forget the 1923 film by Rene Clair, "Paris Qui Dort," in which Paris is accidentally frozen in time by a scientist), MacDonald gives it a fresh spin, combining it with a crime thriller and a comedy. Despite a few missteps (for example, early in the book, it is stated that Kirby's single sexual encounter had taken place 12 years earler, but 100 pages later, it is said to have been 13; in one section, Kirby's lawyer is sitting at his left at a conference table, but two pages later, is said to be at his right), this is a perfectly entertaining novel that should prove pleasing to just about everyone. And really, how can any novel that discusses Ann (sic) Francis' "Twilight Zone" episode "The After Hours" be all bad?

i love this author, this book and its storyline, an adventure book for the ages