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Dress Her in Indigo (1969)

di John D. MacDonald

Serie: Travis McGee (11)

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8011327,333 (3.78)14
From a beloved master of crime fiction, Dress Her in Indigo is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.   Travis McGee could never deny his old friend anything. So before Meyer even says please, McGee agrees to accompany him to Mexico to reconstruct the last mysterious months of a young woman's life--on a fat expense account provided by the father who has lost touch with her. They think she's fallen in with the usual post-teenage misfits and rebels. What they find is stranger, kinkier, and far more deadly.   "To diggers a thousand years from now, the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen."--Kurt Vonnegut   All Meyer's friend wants to know is whether his daughter was happy before she died in a car accident south of the border. But when McGee and Meyer step foot in the hippie enclave in Oaxaca that had become Bix Bowie's last refuge, they get more than they bargained for.   Not only had Bix made a whole group of dangerous, loathsome friends, but she was also mixed up in trafficking heroin into the United States. By the time she died, she was a shell of her former self. And the more McGee looks into things, the less accidental Bix's death starts to seem.   Features a new Introduction by Lee Child… (altro)
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“I envy the generation of readers just discovering Travis McGee and count myself among the many readers savoring his adventures again.” — Sue Grafton (1940-2017)


Perhaps more than any other book within the Travis McGee series, Dress Her in Indigo holds up a mirror to elements in society that were not nearly so pleasant as those wearing rose-colored, politically correct glasses want us to believe. This is most definitely not a Seattle coffee-shop-approved version of the hippie movement. It is a brutally candid and unflinchingly honest look at the darker side of those young people who dropped out during the 1960s. It’s a side not often spoken of, much less illuminated today, thanks to a whitewashing of history, but it is a side of the hippie movement that many will recognize as truth. Published in real-time, in 1969, it is all the braver in showing that it wasn’t all peace and flower-power, but drugs and depravity were part of the mix as well.

This is one of the Travis McGee Mexico entries, taking MacDonald's protagonist out of Florida while maintaining much the same vibe. As Carl Hiaasen noted long ago, MacDonald captured the great beauty and promise of Florida, along with its languid sleaze. He does the same with Mexico, especially rural Mexico, and Dress Her in Indigo is exactly that: a novel about sleaze. In a mingling of the lost and vulnerable, the type of personality seemingly born — perhaps even searching — for someone to prey upon them, and those among them doing the preying, an unpleasant and deeply sad portrait is painted. That portrait is not limited to the hippie culture, however, as MacDonald takes direct aim at the sleazier, predatory element of the homosexual community — male and female — in a manner which rings as brutally honest as McDonald’s take on the hippie dropouts heading to Mexico. With the latter there is sympathy, however, especially because Meyer remembers the girl whose final moments they are trying to uncover in Mexico for her father. Meyer has trouble reconciling just how far Beatrice (Bix) had fallen:

“Let’s give up on the whole thing, Trav. What the h*ll good are we doing? We can’t tell Harl any of this. She was on a gay adventure, full of plans and excitement and fun. Until the tragic accident. Let’s rehearse it. I don’t want to know any more about it. I knew that girl. She was a quiet, calm, decent kid. So she tripped and fell into this da*ned septic tank, and we don’t have to follow her any further into it, do we?”

There is little sympathy from McGee for the predators within the homosexual community, those looking to take advantage by any means, in order to “turn” someone. Nor should there be. One woman even acts as a “broker” of sorts for Bruce Bundy, procuring and then delivering someone she believes may be susceptible to Bundy’s machinations. Lady Rebecca Divin-Harrison, however, is herself a predator of sorts, on the heterosexual front, using her sexual expertise as an outlet for her own neurosis. She uses McGee for a while, until he finally manages to wiggle from her grasp and find a healthier, more rewarding intimacy with the lovely Elena. It takes McGee a while to figure out Lady Harrison, but when he does, it’s dead-center-perfect:

“I realized I had come upon a prime example of that uniquely English phenomenon, the true eccentric. Some of them build cathedrals out of bits of matchstick. Some of them count the number of stalks of hay in the average haystack. Some write a hundred letters a week to the London Times. Some catalogue all the birds in the fifty meadows. They are all quite mad, but do not know that they are mad, since they find a socially acceptable outlet for their monomania. This woman had been driven mad in a war, and had retained one little edge of sanity and built the rest of the structure of her life upon it.”

On this sad quest by McGee and Meyer to give Harlan Bowie an idea of the last months of his young daughter Bix’s life in Mexico before the accident, we get a real sense of the magic of Mexico. In a place where the bungalows have girl names like Alisha, even the older teddy-bear-like economist, Meyer, is affected by the flowers and the sky and the summery air; not to mention other natural beauties such a Ron Townsend’s very sexy, leather-clad and leggy companion, Miranda Dale:

“Didn't all those legs make you feel insecure?” — McGee

"And so did the age of the child. But this is the sort of place where I could try to overcome minor obstacles." — Meyer

MacDonald has McGee and Meyer flying into Oaxaca on a rivet-missing and shaky old Douglas:

“We were off to start at the end of her life and work back.”

Soon McGee and Meyer are drowning in the sad cesspool of Bix’s life with Minda McLean, Carl Sessions, Jerome Nesta, and finally, Walter Rockland and Eva Vitrier. On the sidelines waits Bruce Bundy, a slimy gay predator with enough dough to pull it off, and Minda Mclean’s father, who has retired and dropped out himself. He has turned into a hippie, thinking he’ll be able to bridge the gap easier when he finds Minda. While McLean’s spiel sounds good on paper, his liberal explanation for the hippie culture and why the kids were drawn to it plausible in some academic setting, it rings sad and hollow in contrast to the starker truth McGee is discovering. Just how hollow we don’t discover until several people are dead. The sleaze begins bothering McGee so bad he comments to Meyer:

“Dandy little village they've got here. These sweet kindly folk tear me up, they really do. I'm even beginning to wonder about Emilio Fuentes. He'll probably turn out to be a retired female wrestler going around in drag.”

MacDonald, always a terrific writer, intersperses wonderfully descriptive moments of the landscape and people of Mexico as he takes the reader deeper and deeper into the sad story of Bix’s life in Mexico:

“There was evident poverty, beggars with twisted limbs, sick children, stray mongrels, but there was a sense of great life and vitality, of enduring laughter.”

And we get a terrific character portrait of Emilio Fuentes, a thirty-something businessman who knows how to live. It is through him that we get a look at male/female interactions in Mexico, which despite wishes of the PC crowd to the contrary, surely rings as true today as it did in 1969 when this book was published. One such scene which some have made note of is a moment between Emilio and one of his secretaries, a tall solemn girl. She brings him the mail and this happens:

“He read the letters swiftly, scrawled his big signature on each and handed them to the girl, then slapped her smartly across the seat of her skirt as she turned. She yelped and jumped, and he said something in swift, slurred Spanish. She spoke in tones of protest. He spoke again. She smiled and flushed and walked swiftly out.”

Emilio turns to McGee and has this explanation:

“That one,” he explained, “that Rosita, she had the unhoppy love affair and now she has the long face. I told her I wanted to see if there was any feeling left in the back side. She told me I should have more respect. Then I said something, it doesn’t translate. But it made her face hot and it made her smile, no?”

Even though it may not be something we as a male reader might approve of or do, or how as a female reader we might react to such an action, it rings absolutely true, both then and today. In fiction, you have to be able to weave real-life moments within a story to give it validity. It is really a wonderful scene, because it accomplishes many things. First, it gives us a picture of a culture. Yes, some will say it’s 1969, but that’s a copout. Were we a fly on the wall today in parts of Mexico we would discover that such moments still happen, and with the same reactions from both parties. Secondly, it creates an indelible impression of Emilio Fuentes for the reader which is carried forward in the narrative. It helps the reader understand and like him — at least I did. Emilio, a friend of Ron Townsend who aids McGee as he backtracks Bix’s trail, takes McGee and Meyer to a rooftop beach party where they meet Elena and Margarita, who play important roles within the story, giving the reader moments of normalcy to offset the sleaze. Thirdly, it allows the reader to glimpse a culture at its basic level, the sexes interacting in “reality” as opposed to how the angry, militant feminists would like it to be, with every girl, every woman, adhering strictly to a party line not of their own making, removing their individuality. Because women are not all the same. Some use common sense, and are capable of taking care of themselves. They are not snowflakes, or man-hating angry feminists. They are capable of discerning intentions and differentiating between truly dreadful behavior which should be condemned, and relatively harmless — though inappropriate — actions. Because Rosita stood up for herself and put Emilio in his place, yet smiled because she did realize it wasn’t lecherous in that particular instance, it makes the reader like her, as well. You might say she’s Catherine Deneuve approved, which is a great thing.

I’m nearly always obligated to comment on minutiae like this when reviewing a Travis McGee book, because it invariably becomes a talking point with readers. Since much of the scene is quoted above, however, readers can see what "Actually" happens in the scene for themselves. Time to move on.

There are a couple of other good young people McGee encounters in Mike Barrington and Della Davis. They are closer to the image we have today of the hippie culture, showing that it wasn’t all the same for everyone. Yet they cannot remain untouched by the darker and tawdrier side of the coin for too long. Despite a violent confrontation McGee has with someone near the end of the book which leaves him injured, and Meyer wounded, it really is the sleaze we remember from this one, that ugly yet honest portrait of the drugs and the sexual predators, the sadness and anger. In the end, there’s a twist we didn’t see coming, but the reader’s elation is short-lived. This far down the septic tank, it’s impossible to get clean.

Perhaps it’s because we’ve lingered for too long a period with the murderers and homosexual predators and those looking to make a score from the misery of one another, Dress Her in Indigo seems longer than it is. Misery and sadness and depravity mingle with beauty and pleasure and MacDonald captures both, but it is the former which wins out in the end, and the reader can’t wait for McGee and Meyer to get back to Florida.

I’m tempted to give this one four stars, solid ones, because it’s a terrific story which resonates, yet doesn’t quite reach the upper echelon of Travis McGee entries. This is especially so because the next in the series, The Long Lavender Look is one of the absolute best. Yet, I’m going to give it five stars, and here is the reason:

Everything in this narrative rings true, yet in today’s PC climate, it is certain to get harangued or misrepresented. A great story is a great story, however, and one which tells the truth deserves some applause. For those who disagree with MacDonald’s painting of segments of society, which still ring true, that’s okay. I think they are ignoring the reality, and that’s okay too. But you must be able to write it, and to say it. And to that point, I’ll end the review by deferring to a very famous mystery writer, who just happens to be a woman:

“I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.” — P.D. James ( )
  Matt_Ransom | Oct 6, 2023 |
3.5☆ ( )
  leslie.98 | Jun 27, 2023 |
More Travis McGee fun - this time in Mexido with lots of lurid drugs and scenes. ( )
  apende | Jul 12, 2022 |
McGee and Meyer are hired to go to Mexico to find out what the last the man's daughter Bix's last days were like. The police have concluded it was an accident caused by driving when impaired with drugs. As they track down the other four young people who drove to Mexico with Bix, the bodies start to pile up and several strange characters come out of the woodwork.

As they search out the mystery, they both discover beautiful women to bed or battle to get to the solution. ( )
  lamour | Mar 26, 2020 |
OK, I'm a sucker for all the MacDonald books. Another good thriller. Fun read. ( )
  ikeman100 | Jan 28, 2020 |
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He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things. - George Savile, Marquis of Halifax
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On that early afternoon in late August, Meyer and I walked through the canvas tunnel at Miami International and boarded a big bird belonging to Aeronaves de Mexico for the straight shot to Mexico City.
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From a beloved master of crime fiction, Dress Her in Indigo is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.   Travis McGee could never deny his old friend anything. So before Meyer even says please, McGee agrees to accompany him to Mexico to reconstruct the last mysterious months of a young woman's life--on a fat expense account provided by the father who has lost touch with her. They think she's fallen in with the usual post-teenage misfits and rebels. What they find is stranger, kinkier, and far more deadly.   "To diggers a thousand years from now, the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen."--Kurt Vonnegut   All Meyer's friend wants to know is whether his daughter was happy before she died in a car accident south of the border. But when McGee and Meyer step foot in the hippie enclave in Oaxaca that had become Bix Bowie's last refuge, they get more than they bargained for.   Not only had Bix made a whole group of dangerous, loathsome friends, but she was also mixed up in trafficking heroin into the United States. By the time she died, she was a shell of her former self. And the more McGee looks into things, the less accidental Bix's death starts to seem.   Features a new Introduction by Lee Child

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