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Cancel All Our Vows
Fawcett, mass market paperback. Fletcher Wyant and his wife Jane had been married for fifteen years. They had built the perfect marriage - two wonderful kids, a warm beautiful home, and their own private never-ending love affair.Fletcher thought he knew Jane completely. No dark secrets. No hidden past. Then one hot summer week everything changed. And suddenly, brutally, Jane became a cold stranger.
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
62 people are currently reading
166 people want to read
About the author
John D. MacDonald
568 books1,377 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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December 24, 2022Cancel All Our Vows is one of a number of novels MacDonald put out focusing on domestic drama and more specifically infidelity. The story is not crime fiction although there are hints of violence with guns being pointed, and calls for murder. It’s as if we are reminded that beneath the thin veneer of civilization it all hangs by a thread.
The setting is classic domestic with a high powered executive and his wife, Fletcher and Jane, at a furnace/ air conditioning plant inviting the new couple, Ellis and Laura, to the country club as new members. It is a suburban paradise where there is a nearby lake and endless barbecues and lots of mixed drinks.
We quickly learn that Ellis is a quiet ambitious guy whose only goal is his next promotion up the corporate ladder, even to the point of suggesting that Laura flirt with his new boss, Fletcher. Laura herself is a bit of a free spirit who lost her first husband and clung to Ellis as a safe harbor in the storm. She thinks the country club set is ridiculous and dresses scandalously turning every eye. She also thinks she has a soulmate in Fletcher who deep down feels the same about how ridiculous all the small talk in suburban life is.
The main event here, of course, is Fletcher and Jane and how quickly they threw away fifteen years of married life, her with the college jock in the lake in something that wasn’t quite infidelity and bordered on date rape, him with the spouse of his understudy in what was supposed to be a romantic interlude, but became something quite strange and savage.
Although this is primarily a domestic soap opera, there are hints that the perfect life in suburbia might be anything but. That some in those cookie cutter matching houses might find things a bit to trite – a bit lacking in adventure and mystery. That the endless barbecues abs Tupperware parties are empty and meaningless. There’s a tension here between throwing it all away and heading out on the highway looking for adventure and whatever comes our way and finding that what’s out there isn’t necessarily better, deeper, or more meaningful.
The setting is classic domestic with a high powered executive and his wife, Fletcher and Jane, at a furnace/ air conditioning plant inviting the new couple, Ellis and Laura, to the country club as new members. It is a suburban paradise where there is a nearby lake and endless barbecues and lots of mixed drinks.
We quickly learn that Ellis is a quiet ambitious guy whose only goal is his next promotion up the corporate ladder, even to the point of suggesting that Laura flirt with his new boss, Fletcher. Laura herself is a bit of a free spirit who lost her first husband and clung to Ellis as a safe harbor in the storm. She thinks the country club set is ridiculous and dresses scandalously turning every eye. She also thinks she has a soulmate in Fletcher who deep down feels the same about how ridiculous all the small talk in suburban life is.
The main event here, of course, is Fletcher and Jane and how quickly they threw away fifteen years of married life, her with the college jock in the lake in something that wasn’t quite infidelity and bordered on date rape, him with the spouse of his understudy in what was supposed to be a romantic interlude, but became something quite strange and savage.
Although this is primarily a domestic soap opera, there are hints that the perfect life in suburbia might be anything but. That some in those cookie cutter matching houses might find things a bit to trite – a bit lacking in adventure and mystery. That the endless barbecues abs Tupperware parties are empty and meaningless. There’s a tension here between throwing it all away and heading out on the highway looking for adventure and whatever comes our way and finding that what’s out there isn’t necessarily better, deeper, or more meaningful.
July 5, 2025
Unusually Lousy
This was the most boring of all the ones I didn't bail on.
Long harangues about swimming, water-skiing, and even tennis. Constant weather reports.
I think he sets himself a goal of about 200 pages and just inserts enough descriptions of lighting a cigarette to time it just right.
Pitiful crap.
This was the most boring of all the ones I didn't bail on.
Long harangues about swimming, water-skiing, and even tennis. Constant weather reports.
I think he sets himself a goal of about 200 pages and just inserts enough descriptions of lighting a cigarette to time it just right.
Pitiful crap.
January 2, 2026
Published in 1953
Laura is a force beyond horny, a psychotic house wife, fan of scalding hot baths who hears voices of Lovcraftian self harm.
Never lets up. Brow beats her target, Fletcher, her husband Ellis boss , into kinky and unfazable banter.
They kiss, they hit a literal jackpot at the country club.
Fletcher scolds his wife for being upset with his obvious flirting. Corporate well being vs functional marriges. Undersexed and over imaginative. Any ways, theres
Jane, Fletchers wife. "Stacked". Doting Mom. Rapist Rationalizer.
And this is all before page 50.
Side note :
Also disturbing is the use of hamburg when someone gets a hamburger
Ex "A girl in slacks took his order for hamburg, milk shake and cigarettes."
"When the hamburg came at long last, it was lukewarm..."
Was that a thing in 1953?
JDM also uses in a few of his books "Christer" to mean a bible thumper. That one I like and have never seen anyone else use..
Not alot of plot. But some solid JDM prose. For example...
"Sounds mystic," he said, with an attempt at lightness.
Fletcher. None."
"Perhaps it is. You see, there's going to be no love,
"What?"
He lifted his foot from the gas pedal involuntarily.
"Don't look so alarmed, darling. What we are going to have isn't going to be love. No vows about eternity. Nothing sweet and sticky, full of gasping sighs and odes to eye-brows. I've outlived love, Fletcher."
"What shall we. call it?"
"A nice plain word, Fletcher. Very simple. Begins with the same letter and has the same number of letters. Lust.
And the fulfillment of lust. And nothing less than that. A little death through lust, Fletcher. And the beginning of a lot of little deaths for us. We want it to be just as evil and
animal and contrived as we can possibly make it. So we aren't people any more. That's what I want. To stop being anything but a she-thing. And you are the he-thing.
I want you with cloven hooves, Fletcher. And we'll do everything we can think of to close ourselves off from a pretty little world of manners and customs and tenderness. We'll be in our own world, Fletcher.
And
I knew it was gonna end the way it did.
Oh well Happy New Year. Here we go.
Laura is a force beyond horny, a psychotic house wife, fan of scalding hot baths who hears voices of Lovcraftian self harm.
Never lets up. Brow beats her target, Fletcher, her husband Ellis boss , into kinky and unfazable banter.
They kiss, they hit a literal jackpot at the country club.
Fletcher scolds his wife for being upset with his obvious flirting. Corporate well being vs functional marriges. Undersexed and over imaginative. Any ways, theres
Jane, Fletchers wife. "Stacked". Doting Mom. Rapist Rationalizer.
And this is all before page 50.
Side note :
Also disturbing is the use of hamburg when someone gets a hamburger
Ex "A girl in slacks took his order for hamburg, milk shake and cigarettes."
"When the hamburg came at long last, it was lukewarm..."
Was that a thing in 1953?
JDM also uses in a few of his books "Christer" to mean a bible thumper. That one I like and have never seen anyone else use..
Not alot of plot. But some solid JDM prose. For example...
"Sounds mystic," he said, with an attempt at lightness.
Fletcher. None."
"Perhaps it is. You see, there's going to be no love,
"What?"
He lifted his foot from the gas pedal involuntarily.
"Don't look so alarmed, darling. What we are going to have isn't going to be love. No vows about eternity. Nothing sweet and sticky, full of gasping sighs and odes to eye-brows. I've outlived love, Fletcher."
"What shall we. call it?"
"A nice plain word, Fletcher. Very simple. Begins with the same letter and has the same number of letters. Lust.
And the fulfillment of lust. And nothing less than that. A little death through lust, Fletcher. And the beginning of a lot of little deaths for us. We want it to be just as evil and
animal and contrived as we can possibly make it. So we aren't people any more. That's what I want. To stop being anything but a she-thing. And you are the he-thing.
I want you with cloven hooves, Fletcher. And we'll do everything we can think of to close ourselves off from a pretty little world of manners and customs and tenderness. We'll be in our own world, Fletcher.
And
I knew it was gonna end the way it did.
Oh well Happy New Year. Here we go.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 11, 2021
You must enter any good story knowing it’s tone. Start watching a Bond film thinking it’s a serious character study, and you will come away disappointed. Start watching Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf thinking it’s going to be a popcorn murder mystery, and you will miss all the truly ugly mystery, intrigue, and soaring pain that story reflects back upon our own selves.
Make no mistake. This is MacDonald not as the writer of a thriller, but at his domestic turmoil best. No gunfire. No bloody murders. No near-death experiences. But a story about how some of us can murder others (and ourselves) from within. About how we don’t need guns to pull the trigger on our lives. About how, if we are not always looking to the skies, struggling to claw our way upwards, we can be buried alive in the flicker of a moment.
There are no easy answers in this book. Just as there are none in life. But know what this story will be going in, and you will be reminded once again how vividly three-dimensional and resilient MacDonald’s characters, and ourselves, are.
Make no mistake. This is MacDonald not as the writer of a thriller, but at his domestic turmoil best. No gunfire. No bloody murders. No near-death experiences. But a story about how some of us can murder others (and ourselves) from within. About how we don’t need guns to pull the trigger on our lives. About how, if we are not always looking to the skies, struggling to claw our way upwards, we can be buried alive in the flicker of a moment.
There are no easy answers in this book. Just as there are none in life. But know what this story will be going in, and you will be reminded once again how vividly three-dimensional and resilient MacDonald’s characters, and ourselves, are.
August 8, 2012
One of the lesser of JDM's offerings.
"FOR FIFTEEN YEARS THEY HAD BEEN MARRIED. Fletcher Wyant and Jane. They had built a perfect marriage - -two wonderful kids, a warm beautiful home, their own private never-ending love affair. Fletcher thought he knew Jane completely. No dark secrets. No hidden past.
Then one hot summer week everything changed. And suddenly, brutally, Jane became a cold stranger. CANCEL ALL OUR VOWS is a vivid, shocking novel of lawless love and shattering desires - -desires that bring men and women to the brink of disaster."
"FOR FIFTEEN YEARS THEY HAD BEEN MARRIED. Fletcher Wyant and Jane. They had built a perfect marriage - -two wonderful kids, a warm beautiful home, their own private never-ending love affair. Fletcher thought he knew Jane completely. No dark secrets. No hidden past.
Then one hot summer week everything changed. And suddenly, brutally, Jane became a cold stranger. CANCEL ALL OUR VOWS is a vivid, shocking novel of lawless love and shattering desires - -desires that bring men and women to the brink of disaster."
December 4, 2013
Interesting character study of the times, 1950's and what drove people. Was looking for a Travis McGee but was stuck in a far away place with small choices.
Enjoyed it immensely.
Enjoyed it immensely.
October 29, 2023
I am not one of mystery fandom’s John D. MacDonald worshippers, and I don’t think that Cancel All our Vows measures up even to Travis McGee standards, which for me are not high ones. It is, like all his books, sexist. Admittedly it was written 70 (seventy!) years ago and it reflects the writer’s era’s casual acceptance of smoking (every single adult in the book smokes), alcoholism and yes, the sexual double standard, and in that sense maybe it can be viewed as an interesting picture of a bygone culture. But I don’t think people change, and those in Cancel All our Vows seemed like a different species. It’s obvious that I didn’t like this book. To anyone wondering about MacDonald’s appeal, I enthusiastically recommend The Executioners, The Last One Left, and one of my favorite books ever, Condominium.
November 4, 2020
Well, it happened. I finally found a JDM novel that I could not finish. It's not that this isn't a crime or mystery story. I really liked his family drama " Contrary Pleasure" which was released the same year in 1954. This is a tale of what was then modern age marital infidelity. I have always found JDM's depiction of sex and romance to be overly complex and rather tiresome to read. I admittedly have had to scan over the irrelevant passages of these dissertations to get to the point. This book is the letter from Puss Killian times 100! I made it through enough of this to get the drift but I just couldn't become interested. I did a little more skimming and read the last couple of pages and I do get it. However, I just couldn't read it anymore.
March 3, 2019
Those expecting a Travis McGee type mystery will be sorely disappointed in Cancel Our Vows, but those who know JD well will relish in his dialog. How can a fifty year old story be so relatable today? He tackles conflict vs loneliness head-on and then leaves you with a quasi satisfying ending. The morals don’t quite fit today’s Twitter-types, but for those of you over 50, you’ll get it. You’ll root for Jane and Fletcher and maybe be able to relate to their woes. Very good read. One of my favourites outside the Travis McGee series.
June 27, 2021
OK. Not great. No mystery.
This feels like a late 50s/early 60s sex and infidelity novel as the sexual revolution still hasn’t arrived. Almost a blueprint for a troubled marriage in the Eisenhower Years, when sex was still a taboo and people didn’t know how they really felt about love, ambition, and lust. The sexual attractions are blunt and somewhat animal. The double standard is in full view. The writing is solid and clichéd. At the end of the day there are better stories about the subject.
This feels like a late 50s/early 60s sex and infidelity novel as the sexual revolution still hasn’t arrived. Almost a blueprint for a troubled marriage in the Eisenhower Years, when sex was still a taboo and people didn’t know how they really felt about love, ambition, and lust. The sexual attractions are blunt and somewhat animal. The double standard is in full view. The writing is solid and clichéd. At the end of the day there are better stories about the subject.
December 24, 2023
Has the trajectory of a suspense novel, but that doesn't work well when examining the more inward and delicate subject matter of a marriage's falling apart. MacDonald relies on violence and extreme character types here, which feel out of place. The grace of his language gives a pleasant tingle of surprise in the context of a Travis McGee/Suspense/Adventure novel, but when he stretches for beauty of expression in this book, the language comes off as contrived, most notably the extended "evil plant" metaphor.
February 21, 2019
Am exploration of marriage 1960s style
Unmistakably MacDonald with his observation, judgement and moralism. Perhaps an early Peyton Place. (I think this came before.) One can feel the ruthless July heat and potty their lack of contemporary air conditioning. Much drinking, and perhaps some of Sam Rice's worry about becoming another man in a gray flannel sit is a reflection of MacDonald's own hope of being genuine.
Unmistakably MacDonald with his observation, judgement and moralism. Perhaps an early Peyton Place. (I think this came before.) One can feel the ruthless July heat and potty their lack of contemporary air conditioning. Much drinking, and perhaps some of Sam Rice's worry about becoming another man in a gray flannel sit is a reflection of MacDonald's own hope of being genuine.
July 22, 2018
“Cancel All Our Vows” is not a mystery or crime novel. Written in 1953, it is a character study of misses. Missed opportunities, miscommunication, avoidable mishaps and misplaced anger. It is part and parcel of that never never land of the early 1950s—those supposedly halcyon days that in reality were rife with double standards and false morality.
January 5, 2020
I found this book disturbing. Reading the slang of the 1950’s casual conversations was fun. I was not satisfied with the ending. I am trying to decide if I should throw this copy in the garbage, or recycle it....
May 28, 2019
Took awhile to get going, I even considering quitting, but this is JDM, so I thought I'd stick with it and see what happened and it got better, and I'm glad I did. It's slow but good.
August 7, 2021
A good old soap-opera. One you can't put down until you've finished.
September 23, 2023
Surprisingly, the polar opposite of Travis Magee's sexual-healing philosophy: monogamy at the country club. Lots of Joycean interior monologs.
December 5, 2024
Pure melodrama
A case study of 50’s morality written in 50 shades of gray and no one to root for. Disappointing for Travis McGee fans.
A case study of 50’s morality written in 50 shades of gray and no one to root for. Disappointing for Travis McGee fans.
December 30, 2024
DNF. Dated, not in Florida, and uninteresting social commentary.
September 23, 2016
Pretty good. All about affairs in 1953. She allows herself to be raped by a college football stud and then feels very bad. He finds out, hits the roof and decides to go for the wife of an underling who is very forward and weird. It is d-r-a-g-g-y seeing some of it play out at such length. More like a documentary at some point and I was ready to move on with the story a few times. Still, good core MacDonald book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 25, 2015
24 dec 15, #70 from macdonald for me, kindle, just finished April Evil an okay story hope this is better onward upward
25dec15 finished...good story. no crimes spies crooks books cops wops...oops. oiga boiga! relationships, marriage, fidelity infidelity the whole shebang. onward upward
25dec15 finished...good story. no crimes spies crooks books cops wops...oops. oiga boiga! relationships, marriage, fidelity infidelity the whole shebang. onward upward
July 27, 2010
A speciality of MacDonald's seems to be the deteriorating relationship that turns really ugly.
March 4, 2009
Well written, but dated. Date rape isn't socially acceptable these days.
April 19, 2016
Of course well written, but boring and sometimes hard to get through a chapter. No mystery or crimes here, just a detailed mid-century character study about infidelity in society.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews