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The Deceivers
The Deceivers, one of many classic novels from John D. MacDonald, the beloved author of Cape Fear and the Travis McGee series, is now available as an eBook.
Carl can’t get her out of his mind. Her name is Cindy, and she’s the wife of his next-door neighbor. They live in the kind of suburbia that doesn’t make headlines. In every way, Carl and Cindy are regular people—upstanding citizens, even—but they have been fighting desperately to keep from wanting each other. Had a perfect opportunity not presented itself, perhaps nothing would have happened. But suddenly it is the right time. The right place. And there’s no room left for pretense. In a moment, even as Cindy and Carl hate themselves for what they are about to do, all innocence drains out of their lives . . . and two regular people become creatures of passion—and astonishing guilt.
Features a new Introduction by Dean Koontz
Praise for John D. MacDonald
“The great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King
“My favorite novelist of all time.”—Dean Koontz
“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
“A master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer . . . John D. MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in the field. Talk about the best.”—Mary Higgins Clark
Carl can’t get her out of his mind. Her name is Cindy, and she’s the wife of his next-door neighbor. They live in the kind of suburbia that doesn’t make headlines. In every way, Carl and Cindy are regular people—upstanding citizens, even—but they have been fighting desperately to keep from wanting each other. Had a perfect opportunity not presented itself, perhaps nothing would have happened. But suddenly it is the right time. The right place. And there’s no room left for pretense. In a moment, even as Cindy and Carl hate themselves for what they are about to do, all innocence drains out of their lives . . . and two regular people become creatures of passion—and astonishing guilt.
Features a new Introduction by Dean Koontz
Praise for John D. MacDonald
“The great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King
“My favorite novelist of all time.”—Dean Koontz
“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
“A master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer . . . John D. MacDonald is a shining example for all of us in the field. Talk about the best.”—Mary Higgins Clark
207 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 1958
45 people are currently reading
191 people want to read
About the author
John D. MacDonald
567 books1,370 followersJohn D. MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and educated at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Syracuse and Harvard, where he took an MBA in 1939. During WW2, he rose to the rank of Colonel, and while serving in the Army and in the Far East, sent a short story to his wife for sale, successfully. He served in the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. After the war, he decided to try writing for a year, to see if he could make a living. Over 500 short stories and 70 novels resulted, including 21 Travis McGee novels.
Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.
In the years since his death MacDonald has been praised by authors as diverse as Stephen King, Spider Robinson, Jimmy Buffett, Kingsley Amis and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Thirty-three years after his passing the Travis McGee novels are still in print.
Following complications of an earlier heart bypass operation, MacDonald slipped into a coma on December 10 and died at age 70, on December 28, 1986, in St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was survived by his wife Dorothy (1911-1989) and a son, Maynard.
In the years since his death MacDonald has been praised by authors as diverse as Stephen King, Spider Robinson, Jimmy Buffett, Kingsley Amis and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Thirty-three years after his passing the Travis McGee novels are still in print.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 17, 2022
MacDonald’s 1958 novel, the Deceivers, was one of several novels MacDonald wrote focused on Adultery rather than on crime or suspense. In fact, it’s pretty much the whole enchilada. But he nevertheless makes it just as exciting and suspenseful.
Two successful middle class couples, each with two precious children, climbing the corporate ladder, and buying the biggest house they could afford. Carl and Joan in one house. Bucky and Cindy, the younger couple in the other. But it’s Carl and Cindy who are the brooding intellectuals and are so much in sync. And it’s only on the occasion of Joan’s hospitalization to cut out her ovaries and fibroids and Becky’s out of town business trip that the in-sync couple let’s loose.
They profess to each other that it won’t be another sordid affair to be gossiped about. They won’t do the deed in their two empty houses side by side. The kids are all away at camp or the in-laws. No, they will have a proper affair in a no-tell motel with big bottles of champagne.
And that’s when you know it’s all going to fall apart on them. They are not as clever as they think. They can’t come up with enough lies to cover up. Indeed, there’s probably no one in the whole damn neighborhood who was fooled. But damn the consequences they needed four consecutive nights of physical bliss and nothing was going to stand in their way.
What MacDonald does is capture these two complicated people, show how shockingly callous they were, and make them so well-rounded that you feel fir them as their worlds collide and fall apart.
Two successful middle class couples, each with two precious children, climbing the corporate ladder, and buying the biggest house they could afford. Carl and Joan in one house. Bucky and Cindy, the younger couple in the other. But it’s Carl and Cindy who are the brooding intellectuals and are so much in sync. And it’s only on the occasion of Joan’s hospitalization to cut out her ovaries and fibroids and Becky’s out of town business trip that the in-sync couple let’s loose.
They profess to each other that it won’t be another sordid affair to be gossiped about. They won’t do the deed in their two empty houses side by side. The kids are all away at camp or the in-laws. No, they will have a proper affair in a no-tell motel with big bottles of champagne.
And that’s when you know it’s all going to fall apart on them. They are not as clever as they think. They can’t come up with enough lies to cover up. Indeed, there’s probably no one in the whole damn neighborhood who was fooled. But damn the consequences they needed four consecutive nights of physical bliss and nothing was going to stand in their way.
What MacDonald does is capture these two complicated people, show how shockingly callous they were, and make them so well-rounded that you feel fir them as their worlds collide and fall apart.
February 17, 2020
John D. MacDonald may be best-known for his Travis McGee stories, but he also wrote a wide range of stand-alone novels. The Deceivers is one of his best. Anyone contemplating an extra-marital affair, particularly with a close friend's spouse, would do well to read this scarifying tale before plunging in. MacDonald lays bare the psychological wanderings of his characters in a way that will make your skin crawl. Set in the sunny world of post-WWII, and perhaps a little dated because of that, the story touches all the bases of human aspiration and frailty. Highly recommended.
January 1, 2018
I'm mostly familiar with John MacDonald through his Travis McGee (or is that MacGee? I can't remember at the moment) and other crimecentric novels so this one was a little unexpected for me. His characterizations are really his str no suit here, although the peripheral characters may be a tad cliched. Nevertheless that does little to distract from the story.
May 11, 2025
Protagonist + Hoetagonist = Talk + Smooch + Talk
I rarely bail on a book, but this one is outstanding.
It's not as unpleasant as the Immersive Art Experiences of reading Pynchon, Tolkien, and Stephen King, but it's within an epsilon of it. This is just tiring; those guys are complete bullshitters. Bullshit is worse than chloroform.
I'm more than a third through it and the only things that have happened is that about every 10 pages, the protagonist and the hoetagonist drop something and, while simultaneously reaching down to pick it up, they "accidentally" kiss. Then there's the "her hair brushed my cheek" and all that. Then they talk about it for another 10 pages. There's way too much Love in this book for anyone to ever get murdered. If there's any "murder" coming up, it's gonna be done by me.
This fails my Believability Test: my parents were of this generation and they didn't go around porking all the neighbors (and I don't believe anything if I don't see it myself). I'm sure hippies all went around porking all their fellow commune-ists, but this book is from the 50s. (More evidence that there was no such thing as Beatniks; they'd be the missing link.)
JDM has snatched victory from the vice-like grip of the razor-sharp teeth of defeat before, so I may just be exposing my soft-underbelly and missing-out. He's also good at a main-course of meaty ending. But I just can't do another 10 pages of arty-talk about "feelings", dropped ashtray, and smooch -- then 10 more pages of arty-talk about their "feelings" about the smooch.
Very often JDM's imagination just amazes me. Comparing his books, one to another, there's an enormous amount of variety. Too bad there's such a big spread in the quality too. Orrie Hitt was much more consistent, though he wasn't as inventive.
I guess I'll return to Cape Scary. Better to be spooked than smothered in kisses.
I rarely bail on a book, but this one is outstanding.
It's not as unpleasant as the Immersive Art Experiences of reading Pynchon, Tolkien, and Stephen King, but it's within an epsilon of it. This is just tiring; those guys are complete bullshitters. Bullshit is worse than chloroform.
I'm more than a third through it and the only things that have happened is that about every 10 pages, the protagonist and the hoetagonist drop something and, while simultaneously reaching down to pick it up, they "accidentally" kiss. Then there's the "her hair brushed my cheek" and all that. Then they talk about it for another 10 pages. There's way too much Love in this book for anyone to ever get murdered. If there's any "murder" coming up, it's gonna be done by me.
This fails my Believability Test: my parents were of this generation and they didn't go around porking all the neighbors (and I don't believe anything if I don't see it myself). I'm sure hippies all went around porking all their fellow commune-ists, but this book is from the 50s. (More evidence that there was no such thing as Beatniks; they'd be the missing link.)
JDM has snatched victory from the vice-like grip of the razor-sharp teeth of defeat before, so I may just be exposing my soft-underbelly and missing-out. He's also good at a main-course of meaty ending. But I just can't do another 10 pages of arty-talk about "feelings", dropped ashtray, and smooch -- then 10 more pages of arty-talk about their "feelings" about the smooch.
Very often JDM's imagination just amazes me. Comparing his books, one to another, there's an enormous amount of variety. Too bad there's such a big spread in the quality too. Orrie Hitt was much more consistent, though he wasn't as inventive.
I guess I'll return to Cape Scary. Better to be spooked than smothered in kisses.
December 13, 2020
Carl Garrett's wife Joan goes into the hospital to have ovarian tumors removed and he chooses this time to have an affair with the next door neighbor? Yes, and you know this can't end well. MacDonald is masterful with the character development, the inner turmoil, the sordid details of the affair, and just devastating in how he spins out the consequences. He went maybe a bit overboard in the second quarter of the book with the backstory, but the last half of the novel was riveting.
February 2, 2016
This is more 3.5 stars than 4, but because it's MacDonald, I rounded up.
Because of the last paragraph, the last sentence, the last 15 words, this book went from a mediocre 2.5 stars to 3.5. There are good endings, but not that many great ones. THIS is a great one.
Because of the last paragraph, the last sentence, the last 15 words, this book went from a mediocre 2.5 stars to 3.5. There are good endings, but not that many great ones. THIS is a great one.
January 2, 2015
31 dec 14, wednesday afternoon, 3:07 p.m. e.s.t. new year's eve
#20 from macdonald for me. just finished Soft Touch...a great story, 1st person narrated, check it out.
(1958) the deceivers, john d macdonald
this one begins:
the new county memorial hospital was just beyond the eastern edge of the city of hillton. it had opened less than a year ago, a four story, u shaped structure of pale tan stone with aluminum trim, curving walks, plantings, a large asphalted parking area. it was in pleasant country of rolling hills, spangled with the bright colors of the ranch types and split levels of the middle income housing developments that had grown up since the war. the hospital itself was a half mile from a long climbing curve of the six lane turnpike that had been opened in 1955.
carl garrett had told himself, and told joan--possibly too many times--that it certainly would be a lot more pleasant for her in the new hospital than down in the dingy old red brick structure on gollmer street in the middle of the city. at county memorial she would only be a little over a mile and a half from home.
okey dokey then, as the good doctor said (bullwinkle moose hockey team, 1968)...onward & upward.
time place scene settings
city of hillton...nine miles away from crescent ridge
*#10 barrow lane...the garrett residence...crescent ridge...and they have been living there since 1952 when the home was built
*the cable residence...neighbors of the garretts'
*the hospital
*silver river...governor carson bridge
*ballinger corporation hillton metal products division
*steuben's restaurant
*nearby village of scottsville
*battle creek...bucky's parents drove over from...they had a place near
*fort custer
*a drive-in...herman's rathskeller...another drive-in...the timberlane
*the traveler hotel...where carl and cindy have their two-bit romance low-rent rendezvous
*proctor rest home: where cindy is brought to recuperate
*perhaps the time is closely related to the publication date...give or take 1958...probably earlier. let's see...if carl is 22 in '37 when he graduated wharton...he is now 42...20 years later...1957?
characters major minor peripheral real-famous name only
*carl andrew garrett: works for the ballinger corporation, their hillston metal products division, married to joan for seventeen years, two children, his wife joan is going under the knife, surgery for a cancer. he went away for two years during the war...war is our business, business is good, but no word on which war it was. carl got a job with the carrier corporation in syracuse after college. carl is from youngstown, pennsylvania...went to the wharton school, class of '37. he is assistant to the plant manager...a kind of captain...oversees cost management. when he went away to war, he had an 8-month affair with an anglo-indian woman...and he is about to begin another. he is 43 years old and the woman, cindy he is to have an affair with is 16 years his junior
*joan garrett: wife of carl, mother of two children, a patient at the hospital. her maiden name was joan browning. she is the daughter of a doctor in watertown, new york, has a brother, walt, who served in the navy, an older brother. her mother died...an infant son of her parents also passed
*kip "kipper" garrett: 15-year-old son of carl/joan, will be spending the summer 60 miles away in the mountains at lake muriel, camp way-na-ko, his third summer there.
*nancy garrett: 13-year-old daughter of carl/joan, will also be in the lake muriel region, only she will be at camp sar-ay-na, her first summer away from home...her first time away from home
*cynthia "cindy" cable: neighbor to the garretts...wife of bucky...and she has fallen out of love with bucky, does not want to pretend that she does love him.
*gilbert "bucky" cable: husband of cindy
*bobby, 4 and bitsy, 2, children of bucky/cindy
*dr. bernie madden: will be operating on joan garrett
*the promoter who sold the garretts on #10 barrow lane
*the workmen who built the home
*carl's father...a building contractor
*every one of the girls...reluctant husbands...visitors were leaving...a floor nurse...a small sallow brunette on aluminum crutches:
rosa myers: joan's hospital roommate...has been there for a long time
*the little old lady...two nurses rolled a bed...an unconscious girl of ten or eleven
*lucinda may: joan carratte's car...a hillman
*grey lady at the temporary desk
*al washburn & jen: garretts' friends...neighbors in the crescent ridge community
*town supervisors
*village residents of scottsville...there's some action other than the main storyline...two residential areas trying to get along. ..taxes, roads, police, fire, sewer, water, so forth so on
*an old buddy from o.s.i. at collier's
*bucky's parents...and the little monsters...their kids
*pretty nurse...a young man in a t shirt and khakis
*yankees...red sox...god...dreiser (theodore, i think...sister carrie)...camille
*the car next to him was full of teen-agers...car hop (at the drive-in)
*walter upshot...delicious upshot...3 little upshots...hamlet...richard the third
*the crosby's over on shattuck road
*marian: carl's kid sister...now working in new york
*bill garrett: carl's father, a building contractor, who wanted carl to join his business, who made good and is retired now in sarasota barefoot on the beach with his wife, betty.
*betty garrett: carl's mother
*some of the boys who worked for me before--bill
*dick & deedee hightmann...threw a party, invited six other couples...and carl, single at the time...trying to fix him up with miriam.
*a boy she (joan) had been dating...she shared an apartment with two on genesee street
*lois in youngstown...marie and christy in philadelphia...carl's old girlfriends
*dr. browning...joan's father...his housekeeper, his nurse, his dog
*freud...two stone-faced maiden aunts of joan
*a team of specialists from the industrial management firm...production control specialists...women in trim & functional coveralls...the setup men...shop steward...that rayzek bitch...yes, bitch (one of the few times macdonald uses vulgar language)...chinese red...the color of production material...a staff of fifteen, twelve female clerical
*mrs. brisbie: her breasts are described as howitzers...she is an efficient secretary for carl...humorless...she lives with a maiden aunt...workers question whether or not there ever was a mister
*chief of section...finch, goldlaw & sherban are carl's junior officers
*an unwary stock boy...who pinched mrs brisbie's behind...and was punched effectively
**mr. jim hardy: office plant manager...called "little ike" but not to his face
*president eisenhower...bartok...strauss...reds/dodgers
*ray walsh: mover, shaker, someone with his eye on carl's job...or, his eye on moving carl out of the way so he can rise
*gil sullivan, a neighbor of carl's
*molly & cindy & june cardano & that awful martha garron...who visited joan in the hospital
country club...pond lake
*sarah cable: bucky's mother
*little men come & bury pipe
*sandy: from carl's past
*sandara lahl hotchkiss: woman with whom carl had an affair during the world war...new delhi, india
*dr. omar "kach' kacharian: doctor in the village of aldermon, patches up carl
*his wife, bonny kacharian
*their chunk and very red-headed bady, terrance o'rourke kacharian
*bob eldon; the cable lawyer
*bill suthern: man/doctor who works at the proctor rest home
*t.s. eliot...victoria...as in queen...as in victorian...jesus...dagwood
*a woman, safety engineers, a man, a meat cutter, a truck driver, a decent girl, a lathe operator, a wife, a family
*scott and lisa jessup...who have a place on thelake
*a pair of semi-pro cuties
*a hillton paper reporter
*judge howard
*quickling...a lawyer in battle creek, hired by eldon to represent the family interests
*general dorn...the war
*colonel gregory dean...carl meets him during duty...war...and this man is a bellinger executive during peacetime...and he is instrumental in getting carl to leave the other employer...carrier was it?...and coming to work for bellinger
*eunice stockman: busy-body...sits up, camps out, watches and waits and spreads the word.
*jane and paul cardamo
*molly and ted raedek: neighbors...molly knows something is going on, eventually...she openly rebukes. telephones calls when the crew it out and about
*barry sanson: guy who threw the make, the lips on cindy when she didn't want it, was punched
*nelson helvey: an old buck in florida who married...a second time, younger...he is 66, his second, veronica, is 44, described as a brown little simian woman...macdonald with the monkey analogy again...seen it before
*waffle...a dog, spaniel...story that molly relates...dog developed a taste for egg-sucking...cue johnny cash: dirty old egg-sucking dog heh! had spaniels and miss em much
*a woman in white, clara, at the proctor rest home
*ruth calhoun: nurse at the hospital
*nurse gallowell...is the night nurse
*marie pounders: is the jamison cleaning woman
*the gods...drowning man...mrs. pierce, new nurse
*finch, lou goldlaw, will sherban...listed already? carl's workers...next in line below him...some sort of middle managers
*mrs. mincher, 74-year-old woman who fell down the stairs...broke things...and is joan's roommate after the one above was discharged
*the list is probably 90-95% complete...or better...
a quote from the story
i want to read some of the boys who make me have to strain to stay up with them.
--cindy, p. 33
update...through six chapters read
this story reads like few others from macdonald. Slam the Big Door & Flash of Green are two of the twenty i've read--though i have not finished this one--that do not fall into one of the categories we like to place things. there are no bodies outlined in chalk, no foreign or domestic agents. this one, even more so than the other two linked in this paragraph, reads like a story that we like to call literature. after the first three chapters where macdonald sets the stage with the characters, in the fourth chapter he visits the past of carl garrett. chapter five, he visits carl at work, and this chapter is curious and interesting for the manner an industrial production site is portrayed. there is a cynicism, too, on carl's part, stepping out onto the catwalk above the production process--he is a cost manager--and he marvels at the process of assembling and crating and labeling the product going out the door, he imagines the product entering another building--that is not there--it is only there in carl's imagination, to be unpacked, disassembled, the parts sent in the door of the building where carl manages the cost of the process...most simply going about the process without question.
in the next chapter, the sixth, the telling follows carl...and cindy...isolated and alone now...in their neighboring homes, visiting with each other...and as if each is a product that has been delivered, they disassemble their lives and begin to reassemble themselves...though each knows they are not following the plan.
update, finished 1 jan 15, thursday afternoon, new year's day...3:41 p.m. e.s.t.
great story! macdonald can tell a story. this one did not have any murders...though people died...and it didn't have any secret agents...though people kept secrets and secrets were exposed...but it is a well-told tale with a beginning, middle and satisfying conclusion. the story is told completely through carl garrett's p.o.v. so any action that takes place where or when carl is not present is relayed to him through other characters. all of the story is believable...unlike some of his stories that require a stretch of the imagination...and the situations beyond the main storyline--two married people carry on an affair--the situations that revolve around those two people--are all true to life. one can easily imagine this happening and it doesn't take much of a stretch to believe there is a story of life that played out, just as this one was told.
and...just as carl is tasked with investigating costs, investigating why that process breaks down...he, too, rises to the occasion to resolve the breakdown of his marriage vows. there's something to be said about carl's analogy of the industrial production process as that relates to...well, relationships. or baking a cake. or building a house. or plumbing a spec home. there is a method to complete the task, a method and manner that will lead to success. why mess with it? the same could be said about life. why mess with it? is there any reason to suspect that our fiddling with the controls, focking with the ingredients of what could be a success, is there any reason to believe that not following the recipe will lead to a better result, something beyond the natural process?
time passages
one of these time passages is related to the manner in which the industrial production touched briefly on above seems to be related to the manner in which carl and cindy begin a kind of reassembling of their disassembled lives in the chapter that followed. and it is related to time...curious, that, given carl's and joan's talk at the very end..."it's about time, isn't it?" she said, joan. in a sense, nicely ambiguous, seems to contain a double meaning. the time-passages occurs much earlier in the story...page 79 and 80 in my paperback...and again, i label a time-passage when a character in a story imagines a reality or a fantasy other than what is happening, known.
the initial time-passage happens when carl is in the waiting room...he imagines the worst..."carl, sit down. i have to tell you this." a page later...carl tries to ease his conscience by telling himself that his fantasy had been meaningless, that it was evidence of the same offbeat imagination that had prevented him from committing himself... to his work. he devises another game. he imagines a hospital in a world designed on a different basis. this world progresses backward through time. yeah. so. anyway, it is a curious happening in the time-passages scheme-of-things and i think this one, more than the others i've shelved as such...is worth some more thought. you can't paint the entire wall without putting paint on the brush. yeah. so. later, gator.
#20 from macdonald for me. just finished Soft Touch...a great story, 1st person narrated, check it out.
(1958) the deceivers, john d macdonald
this one begins:
the new county memorial hospital was just beyond the eastern edge of the city of hillton. it had opened less than a year ago, a four story, u shaped structure of pale tan stone with aluminum trim, curving walks, plantings, a large asphalted parking area. it was in pleasant country of rolling hills, spangled with the bright colors of the ranch types and split levels of the middle income housing developments that had grown up since the war. the hospital itself was a half mile from a long climbing curve of the six lane turnpike that had been opened in 1955.
carl garrett had told himself, and told joan--possibly too many times--that it certainly would be a lot more pleasant for her in the new hospital than down in the dingy old red brick structure on gollmer street in the middle of the city. at county memorial she would only be a little over a mile and a half from home.
okey dokey then, as the good doctor said (bullwinkle moose hockey team, 1968)...onward & upward.
time place scene settings
city of hillton...nine miles away from crescent ridge
*#10 barrow lane...the garrett residence...crescent ridge...and they have been living there since 1952 when the home was built
*the cable residence...neighbors of the garretts'
*the hospital
*silver river...governor carson bridge
*ballinger corporation hillton metal products division
*steuben's restaurant
*nearby village of scottsville
*battle creek...bucky's parents drove over from...they had a place near
*fort custer
*a drive-in...herman's rathskeller...another drive-in...the timberlane
*the traveler hotel...where carl and cindy have their two-bit romance low-rent rendezvous
*proctor rest home: where cindy is brought to recuperate
*perhaps the time is closely related to the publication date...give or take 1958...probably earlier. let's see...if carl is 22 in '37 when he graduated wharton...he is now 42...20 years later...1957?
characters major minor peripheral real-famous name only
*carl andrew garrett: works for the ballinger corporation, their hillston metal products division, married to joan for seventeen years, two children, his wife joan is going under the knife, surgery for a cancer. he went away for two years during the war...war is our business, business is good, but no word on which war it was. carl got a job with the carrier corporation in syracuse after college. carl is from youngstown, pennsylvania...went to the wharton school, class of '37. he is assistant to the plant manager...a kind of captain...oversees cost management. when he went away to war, he had an 8-month affair with an anglo-indian woman...and he is about to begin another. he is 43 years old and the woman, cindy he is to have an affair with is 16 years his junior
*joan garrett: wife of carl, mother of two children, a patient at the hospital. her maiden name was joan browning. she is the daughter of a doctor in watertown, new york, has a brother, walt, who served in the navy, an older brother. her mother died...an infant son of her parents also passed
*kip "kipper" garrett: 15-year-old son of carl/joan, will be spending the summer 60 miles away in the mountains at lake muriel, camp way-na-ko, his third summer there.
*nancy garrett: 13-year-old daughter of carl/joan, will also be in the lake muriel region, only she will be at camp sar-ay-na, her first summer away from home...her first time away from home
*cynthia "cindy" cable: neighbor to the garretts...wife of bucky...and she has fallen out of love with bucky, does not want to pretend that she does love him.
*gilbert "bucky" cable: husband of cindy
*bobby, 4 and bitsy, 2, children of bucky/cindy
*dr. bernie madden: will be operating on joan garrett
*the promoter who sold the garretts on #10 barrow lane
*the workmen who built the home
*carl's father...a building contractor
*every one of the girls...reluctant husbands...visitors were leaving...a floor nurse...a small sallow brunette on aluminum crutches:
rosa myers: joan's hospital roommate...has been there for a long time
*the little old lady...two nurses rolled a bed...an unconscious girl of ten or eleven
*lucinda may: joan carratte's car...a hillman
*grey lady at the temporary desk
*al washburn & jen: garretts' friends...neighbors in the crescent ridge community
*town supervisors
*village residents of scottsville...there's some action other than the main storyline...two residential areas trying to get along. ..taxes, roads, police, fire, sewer, water, so forth so on
*an old buddy from o.s.i. at collier's
*bucky's parents...and the little monsters...their kids
*pretty nurse...a young man in a t shirt and khakis
*yankees...red sox...god...dreiser (theodore, i think...sister carrie)...camille
*the car next to him was full of teen-agers...car hop (at the drive-in)
*walter upshot...delicious upshot...3 little upshots...hamlet...richard the third
*the crosby's over on shattuck road
*marian: carl's kid sister...now working in new york
*bill garrett: carl's father, a building contractor, who wanted carl to join his business, who made good and is retired now in sarasota barefoot on the beach with his wife, betty.
*betty garrett: carl's mother
*some of the boys who worked for me before--bill
*dick & deedee hightmann...threw a party, invited six other couples...and carl, single at the time...trying to fix him up with miriam.
*a boy she (joan) had been dating...she shared an apartment with two on genesee street
*lois in youngstown...marie and christy in philadelphia...carl's old girlfriends
*dr. browning...joan's father...his housekeeper, his nurse, his dog
*freud...two stone-faced maiden aunts of joan
*a team of specialists from the industrial management firm...production control specialists...women in trim & functional coveralls...the setup men...shop steward...that rayzek bitch...yes, bitch (one of the few times macdonald uses vulgar language)...chinese red...the color of production material...a staff of fifteen, twelve female clerical
*mrs. brisbie: her breasts are described as howitzers...she is an efficient secretary for carl...humorless...she lives with a maiden aunt...workers question whether or not there ever was a mister
*chief of section...finch, goldlaw & sherban are carl's junior officers
*an unwary stock boy...who pinched mrs brisbie's behind...and was punched effectively
**mr. jim hardy: office plant manager...called "little ike" but not to his face
*president eisenhower...bartok...strauss...reds/dodgers
*ray walsh: mover, shaker, someone with his eye on carl's job...or, his eye on moving carl out of the way so he can rise
*gil sullivan, a neighbor of carl's
*molly & cindy & june cardano & that awful martha garron...who visited joan in the hospital
country club...pond lake
*sarah cable: bucky's mother
*little men come & bury pipe
*sandy: from carl's past
*sandara lahl hotchkiss: woman with whom carl had an affair during the world war...new delhi, india
*dr. omar "kach' kacharian: doctor in the village of aldermon, patches up carl
*his wife, bonny kacharian
*their chunk and very red-headed bady, terrance o'rourke kacharian
*bob eldon; the cable lawyer
*bill suthern: man/doctor who works at the proctor rest home
*t.s. eliot...victoria...as in queen...as in victorian...jesus...dagwood
*a woman, safety engineers, a man, a meat cutter, a truck driver, a decent girl, a lathe operator, a wife, a family
*scott and lisa jessup...who have a place on thelake
*a pair of semi-pro cuties
*a hillton paper reporter
*judge howard
*quickling...a lawyer in battle creek, hired by eldon to represent the family interests
*general dorn...the war
*colonel gregory dean...carl meets him during duty...war...and this man is a bellinger executive during peacetime...and he is instrumental in getting carl to leave the other employer...carrier was it?...and coming to work for bellinger
*eunice stockman: busy-body...sits up, camps out, watches and waits and spreads the word.
*jane and paul cardamo
*molly and ted raedek: neighbors...molly knows something is going on, eventually...she openly rebukes. telephones calls when the crew it out and about
*barry sanson: guy who threw the make, the lips on cindy when she didn't want it, was punched
*nelson helvey: an old buck in florida who married...a second time, younger...he is 66, his second, veronica, is 44, described as a brown little simian woman...macdonald with the monkey analogy again...seen it before
*waffle...a dog, spaniel...story that molly relates...dog developed a taste for egg-sucking...cue johnny cash: dirty old egg-sucking dog heh! had spaniels and miss em much
*a woman in white, clara, at the proctor rest home
*ruth calhoun: nurse at the hospital
*nurse gallowell...is the night nurse
*marie pounders: is the jamison cleaning woman
*the gods...drowning man...mrs. pierce, new nurse
*finch, lou goldlaw, will sherban...listed already? carl's workers...next in line below him...some sort of middle managers
*mrs. mincher, 74-year-old woman who fell down the stairs...broke things...and is joan's roommate after the one above was discharged
*the list is probably 90-95% complete...or better...
a quote from the story
i want to read some of the boys who make me have to strain to stay up with them.
--cindy, p. 33
update...through six chapters read
this story reads like few others from macdonald. Slam the Big Door & Flash of Green are two of the twenty i've read--though i have not finished this one--that do not fall into one of the categories we like to place things. there are no bodies outlined in chalk, no foreign or domestic agents. this one, even more so than the other two linked in this paragraph, reads like a story that we like to call literature. after the first three chapters where macdonald sets the stage with the characters, in the fourth chapter he visits the past of carl garrett. chapter five, he visits carl at work, and this chapter is curious and interesting for the manner an industrial production site is portrayed. there is a cynicism, too, on carl's part, stepping out onto the catwalk above the production process--he is a cost manager--and he marvels at the process of assembling and crating and labeling the product going out the door, he imagines the product entering another building--that is not there--it is only there in carl's imagination, to be unpacked, disassembled, the parts sent in the door of the building where carl manages the cost of the process...most simply going about the process without question.
in the next chapter, the sixth, the telling follows carl...and cindy...isolated and alone now...in their neighboring homes, visiting with each other...and as if each is a product that has been delivered, they disassemble their lives and begin to reassemble themselves...though each knows they are not following the plan.
update, finished 1 jan 15, thursday afternoon, new year's day...3:41 p.m. e.s.t.
great story! macdonald can tell a story. this one did not have any murders...though people died...and it didn't have any secret agents...though people kept secrets and secrets were exposed...but it is a well-told tale with a beginning, middle and satisfying conclusion. the story is told completely through carl garrett's p.o.v. so any action that takes place where or when carl is not present is relayed to him through other characters. all of the story is believable...unlike some of his stories that require a stretch of the imagination...and the situations beyond the main storyline--two married people carry on an affair--the situations that revolve around those two people--are all true to life. one can easily imagine this happening and it doesn't take much of a stretch to believe there is a story of life that played out, just as this one was told.
and...just as carl is tasked with investigating costs, investigating why that process breaks down...he, too, rises to the occasion to resolve the breakdown of his marriage vows. there's something to be said about carl's analogy of the industrial production process as that relates to...well, relationships. or baking a cake. or building a house. or plumbing a spec home. there is a method to complete the task, a method and manner that will lead to success. why mess with it? the same could be said about life. why mess with it? is there any reason to suspect that our fiddling with the controls, focking with the ingredients of what could be a success, is there any reason to believe that not following the recipe will lead to a better result, something beyond the natural process?
time passages
one of these time passages is related to the manner in which the industrial production touched briefly on above seems to be related to the manner in which carl and cindy begin a kind of reassembling of their disassembled lives in the chapter that followed. and it is related to time...curious, that, given carl's and joan's talk at the very end..."it's about time, isn't it?" she said, joan. in a sense, nicely ambiguous, seems to contain a double meaning. the time-passages occurs much earlier in the story...page 79 and 80 in my paperback...and again, i label a time-passage when a character in a story imagines a reality or a fantasy other than what is happening, known.
the initial time-passage happens when carl is in the waiting room...he imagines the worst..."carl, sit down. i have to tell you this." a page later...carl tries to ease his conscience by telling himself that his fantasy had been meaningless, that it was evidence of the same offbeat imagination that had prevented him from committing himself... to his work. he devises another game. he imagines a hospital in a world designed on a different basis. this world progresses backward through time. yeah. so. anyway, it is a curious happening in the time-passages scheme-of-things and i think this one, more than the others i've shelved as such...is worth some more thought. you can't paint the entire wall without putting paint on the brush. yeah. so. later, gator.
November 8, 2019
I started by despising the protagonists then found them human and understandable.
A story of marital infidelity. The reader gets to see the affair develop and then evolve. Personally I found myself disliking the protagonists initially. But as events develop and I got to know them my feelings evolved. In the end I came to care for them as individuals.
There is an enormous 1950s backdrop to the story. Little things like bear cans that needed to be opened with a metal punch and party phone lines. Or checking into a motel with cash rather than a credit card.
MacDonald continues to evolve his story telling.
A story of marital infidelity. The reader gets to see the affair develop and then evolve. Personally I found myself disliking the protagonists initially. But as events develop and I got to know them my feelings evolved. In the end I came to care for them as individuals.
There is an enormous 1950s backdrop to the story. Little things like bear cans that needed to be opened with a metal punch and party phone lines. Or checking into a motel with cash rather than a credit card.
MacDonald continues to evolve his story telling.
February 11, 2023
I'm giving this three stars because John D. MacDonald obviously has skill. Adultery is so weak and despicable though that I had a hard time sustaining interest in a novel about it. Not that the book advocates for it. The story has a bunch of themes throughout: suburban malaise, what we think we want versus what we want (although I can't figure out what Carl wanted, really, other than for everyone to think he was special), and, as a doctor says later in the book, the emotional devastation boredom can cause. It's also an era-appropriate look at manhood, misogyny, and how society bends to the needs of the man. It was a worthwhile story.
August 9, 2018
yes, it is MacDonald with all the good and the bad, but in this case the o so narrow plot hinge... 2 "good" people falling into an affair while wife is in the hospital is just not worth hanging on to. I finally did give it up- over half way through because it just didn't really matter to me .. especially when reading the so great graham greene at the same time.
September 23, 2019
Ohmygosh, I didn't enjoy this book At first I was just so happy to be reading familiar JDMacD's
prose - it feels comfortable, like a favorite sweatshirt. . . .and so did the timeframe - the 50s.
But then it got slow; the plot was not so much and then the ending was really not acceptable.
I love his Travis McGee stories and hoped for more. . . .we can't all be fabulous all the time,
I guess.
prose - it feels comfortable, like a favorite sweatshirt. . . .and so did the timeframe - the 50s.
But then it got slow; the plot was not so much and then the ending was really not acceptable.
I love his Travis McGee stories and hoped for more. . . .we can't all be fabulous all the time,
I guess.
May 16, 2024
The Deceivers is a fantastic, forgotten gem of a novel. I don't think the concept of petite bourgeois suburban ennui has ever been captured better, nor has the seismic impact of infidelity been more deeply considered. Whatever hoops you may have to jump through to find a copy of this book, DO IT!
September 6, 2020
Brilliant storytelling as usual from John MacDonald. Pretty quick read with excellent pacing.
July 24, 2023
Oh John D.!
Definitely a character-driven book. Predictable liaison happens but you don’t know what after that. A little tedious as he tries to wrap up all strings. Writing is great, as usual.
Definitely a character-driven book. Predictable liaison happens but you don’t know what after that. A little tedious as he tries to wrap up all strings. Writing is great, as usual.
October 7, 2023
Archetypal cheating-suburbanites tale. Reasonably well-done.
December 19, 2024
wonderfully writen
May 20, 2012
A story about neighbors who are dissatisfied in their respective marriages and fall into an affair based on the perception that their intelligence makes it permissable. It goes wrong. MacDonald's talent for characterization keep this from being too salacious. What MacDonald does better than most authors is accurately capture the modern workplace and its stresses. The vividly reality he brings to the main character's realization of an office rival's power play are the most engaging parts of the book.
August 29, 2011
This was like an Alfred Hitchcock book. It was about a man who cheated on his wife with the next door neighbor while his wife was in the hospital for surgery. The ending was left up to the readers interpretation and you are not sure if he was able to stay married or was asked to leave.
August 11, 2011
Read them as a tween. Love them all.
July 28, 2010
Also a good one.
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