Lew Archer Goes to School: Ross Macdonald’s The Chill (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Lew Archer Goes to School: Ross Macdonald’s The Chill R. L. Friedman (bio) Lew Archer Goes to School: Ross Macdonald's The Chill In 1951 a PhD candidate journeyed back, after a multi-year absence, to the University of Michigan to take his oral examination. Long settled in southern California, he had completed his thesis, entitled “The Inward Eye: A Revaluation of Coleridge’s Psychological Criticism,” and, as he was widely considered a brilliant doctoral student, his friends assumed the culmination of his graduate studies would be an easy success. The student was not as sanguine. His name was Ken Millar, and he anticipated an unduly hostile reception. Since he had not published in Coleridge studies or any academic journal, he anticipated a grilling. His nervousness was due not to any feared inadequacies with his thesis but because he had abandoned academia to pursue his true intellectual love, detective fiction. The American detective novel, he believed, was ripe for literary exploration. Yet, despite its few erudite defenders, the genre remained largely unappreciated by the cognoscenti, including the types of professors who skewer PhD candidates during oral exams. As far as he was concerned, the academy was filled with elitists who looked down on the genre that Millar was convinced could offer as much insight into the human psyche as the Classics. The head of the English department introduced Millar to the newer faculty members, praising the thirty-six-year-old student’s acumen, and then adding, “He also writes murder mysteries.” Millar’s cold, blue-eyed stare scanned the crowd. A murder mystery was what Agatha Christie wrote. He wrote in a psychologically intense fashion, and (to quote his own thesis) where Coleridge wished to “free poetry from scientism,” he would free the detective novel from the psychologically banal. His dander sufficiently raised, all attempts by the snobbier members of the inquisition to foil his academic aspirations were nullified. The PhD was awarded. Millar had spent a miserable youth in eastern Canada, the victim of a broken home, erratic parents, constant moving, and dangerous choices. It wouldn’t have shocked early acquaintances had he ended up in jail. Teetering throughout his youth between petty crimes and pubescent homosexual experiments that left him feeling shamed, he turned his life around by attending college in Ontario and then pursuing graduate studies in English. At Ontario, then Michigan, he had harnessed his considerable intelligence and energy and launched an academic career. Then along came W. H. Auden. The poet taught a seminar at Michigan, saw in Millar a gifted student, confessed that he too loved detective fiction, and eagerly encouraged the grad student in his writing. Shortly after, Millar moved to southern California and set to work, publishing a series of detective novels under the name Ross Macdonald. In all there are eighteen Lew Archer mysteries, two collections of Archer short stories, and a handful of non-Archer tales. The purpose from the start was to pick up the baton from Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and further elevate the detective story from pulp fiction to literature. Like Chandler, [End Page 142] he adhered to a series format; his non-Archer stories are well written and (unlike Chandler) carefully plotted, but they lack the vital strand of continuity of Lew Archer’s journey. What raises Macdonald’s detective fiction to memorable stature is not the intent to write in a literary manner, but rather his obsession with family turmoil and his empathy for troubled youths: the pains that grip every parent and child. Eudora Welty was a fan who dedicated her Eye of the Story to Millar. Warren Zevon was so besotted by Lew Archer mysteries that he sought out Millar at home; the respect was repaid, after Zevon was hospitalized for drug abuse and Millar kept him company. Elizabeth Bowen was a dedicated reader, as was Nelson Algren. Hugh Kenner was both fan and friend (and occasional proofreader), along with Reynolds Price, who wrote a poem in Millar’s honor. Matthew J. Bruccoli compiled the first Ross Macdonald bibliography. All of them recognized from the outset that Lew Archer was as fascinated by a broken psyche as he was...