JOHN D. MacDONALD – A Flash of Green. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1962. Crest, paperback, date? Reprinted many times. Film: International Spectrafilm, 1984, with Ed Harris, Blair Brown, Richard Jordan.

   What might easily only be a story about the expanding universe of Elmo Bliss very quickly becomes a study of reporter Jimmy Wing, who is offered an inside position in Elmo’s organization, geared to eventually be put him in the governor’s chair. Jimmy accepts, with his usual rationalized reservations. His job, to uncover the facts necessary for blackmail; the rationalizations being someone else would do it, somebody not quite so kind. And being on the inside has its own attractions. But once he rationalizes, the decision has been made.

   Blackmail is considered necessary to defeat the birdwatchers opposed to filling in Grassy Bay for commercial purposes. The beginning grabs, the warnings are there, you know it’s going to be a nasty fight. Elmo has his own simplified views of man’s place in nature, of the abstraction of art and beauty, of man-devised tourist attractions as opposed to nature’s own. But in today’s pragmatic world, his views are those which are applied to the Florida of the green dollar. Which is not to pick on Florida, of course.

   And the bay is filled in, with the aid of the pure in heart: the businessman with an eye to the community good, the anti-Communists who pave the way for the efficient action of free enterprise, and the zealous religionists who tie and beat those who do not confirm.

   It is nasty, but not until the beating of Jackie Halliday will Jimmy have enough. His exposure of Elmo’s plans stop future ambitions for the governorship, but this does not seem enough to pay for only the physical damage done, and it is difficult to believe that life in Palm City can go on as before. But on the surface it seems to …

   Lots of characters, fully realized, in depth, but almost too many to keep track of. Wives of businessmen tend to blur into identical sameness, as do the less important of their husbands. But MacDonald manages well, brings life to minor characters as few authors can, and has a point will worth making. Down with ugliness!

Rating: *****

— November 1968.