Gillian Flynn cites her as an influence. Agatha Christie and Truman Capote admired her. Mystery Writers of America awarded her the Grand Master Award in 1983. She won the Edgar Award in 1956, beating Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, and was shortlisted two other times. You’ve probably heard of her famous husband who used the pen name Ross Macdonald, often described as the heir to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. He wrote a series of novels set in southern California featuring the detective Lew Archer that might be termed psychoanalytic noir. The plots often decode generations of dysfunctionality among affluent families. This theme emerged in his writing as his own family life descended into despair and he began psychoanalysis – more on that in a moment.
His real name was Kenneth Millar. Why do you think he started using that pen name? So he wouldn’t be confused with his more famous writer wife, Margaret Millar. Margaret published her first novel in 1941. She was already working as a Hollywood screenwriter when Kenneth published his first Lew Archer novel in 1949. Yet decades later he still receives praise as a noir master while Margaret is rarely mentioned.
Born Margaret Sturm in Ontario, Canada, Maggie was a talented girl who won a scholarship to the University of Toronto. After three years of study her mother died launching her into a period of instability when she dropped out, had a schizophrenic episode and attempted suicide. Reportedly she was reading Thucydides in the original Greek in the University of Toronto library when she ran into Ken, a friend from her hometown. He was attending the University of Western Ontario. They married after he graduated. She never did.
Within a year, at age 24, she gave birth to Linda, likely suffering pre- and postpartum depression. Stuck at home she passed the time reading mysteries and typing her husband’s short stories. She decided to try her hand at writing. Doubleday bought her first effort, The Invisible Worm, published in 1941, and critics complimented her. Before long her stories appeared in the Toronto Star and she was supporting the family.
During the first part of her marriage, Margaret was the successful author while Kenneth taught. She wrote for the Hollywood studios and lunched with William Faulkner. When Warner Brothers optioned her novel The Iron Gates, she bought a home for the family in Santa Barbara and Kenneth quit his teaching job. Of her twenty-six published novels, Alfred Hitchcock adapted two. How did it happen that Ross Macdonald appears on college syllabi while it takes research to come across mention of Margaret Millar?
Beast in View, the Edgar winner of 1956, features a troubled thirty-year-old woman, Helen Clarvoe, living off an inheritance in Los Angeles. Helen’s brother had married Helen’s friend, Evelyn Merrick, but the marriage was annulled after revelation of the brother’s homosexuality. Evelyn has delusions of being immortalized through photography and fantasies of punishing those who do her wrong, including Helen, who she thinks rejected her. Evelyn starts stalking Helen. When others receive similar frightening phone calls, it substantiates Helen’s fears. But we never know for sure what’s going on because we’re dealing with unreliable narrators. Helen’s nightmarish pursuit by her stalker ends in a shocking revelation. Once you read it, you’ll realize how many imitators Beast in View inspired.
Unlike the famous Lew Archer, PI protagonist of Ross Macdonald’s series appearing in sixteen novels and two film adaptations starring Paul Newman, Margaret’s works were largely standalones. For investigator characters she cycled through an attorney, a retired stockbroker, a Hispanic lawyer and PI’s including a Mexican orphan. Could the lack of a reappearing detective character be one reason she ended up with less name recognition than her husband? Millar’s novels explore the psychology of women, ambivalent moral codes and social and economic inequality. She’s considered an early master of domestic noir, a genre which received less attention than jaded male detectives investigating corruption and the criminal underworld. Maybe that’s the reason she’s less celebrated than her husband? He wrote novels exploring abandoned children, absent parents, inappropriate family sexuality, playing out Oedipal and Electra complexes in the format of a detective novel. Perhaps his stronger reputation reflects the triumph of Freudian psychology in twentieth century America? Or is it just plain sexism?
A family tragedy interrupted Millar’s creative output. At age sixteen her daughter Linda drove drunk one night and hit a group of adolescent boys, killing one and severely injuring another. Linda saw a psychiatrist and Ross got deeper into Freudian psychology. After a long court case and lots of attorney fees, Linda received eight years probation. Now hated by Santa Barbara residents, the Millars moved north to Menlo Park. Linda’s problems continued. She disappeared for a week, dropped out of college, finally married and had a child. Then at age 31 she died in her sleep, probably from combining alcohol with sedatives. Margaret stopped writing, said she had nothing more to say, but finally published a few more books before her death in 1994.
Her work went out of press for two decades. Soho Syndicate started publishing reissues in 2016. Maybe it’s time to give Margaret Millar another look.
Think you’ll run into a rattlesnake here? Yeah, maybe even twice…
Rattlesnakes Strike Twice is on NetGalley now. Forthcoming in 2024!
Great article. I've been a fan of Margaret Millar's ever since I came across her short story 'The People Across the Canyon' included in the short story collection 'Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives'