Man, these Fletch novels are so fucking great. Greatly enjoying this reread of Gregory Mcdonald. The man was a master of dialogue while ALSO creating insane yet amazingly believable plots from about six dozen completely disparate story threads. You could really teach an entire class on Mcdonald. He's that good.

#books #reading #gregorymcdonald

As I return to writing Season 3, I am now rereading all of Oscar Wilde (for wit) and all of Gregory Mcdonald (for dialogue). It is ideal to read writers whose talent you can never equal. Because even if you can get one-third of the way there, you still have the shadow of the giants waving their scolding fingers, shaming you so that you never phone it in. Not masochism, per se, but keeping your ego in check, which I often need to do.

#writing #oscarwilde #gregorymcdonald

Why aren't the Fletch books held up with the same literary reverence rightly granted to Richard Stark's excellent Parker novels? Gregory Mcdonald was every bit as amazing as Westlake. And read the first book. Few writers can convincingly manage so many disparate plot elements with believability, crisp dialogue, AND humor! Jesus Christ, if someone wants to hire me to write an essay attesting to all this, I will!

#books #gregorymcdonald #fletch

"I must follow the journalistic instinct of being skeptical of everything until I personally have proved it true "

I decided to reread Gregory Mcdonald's excellent Fletch series: not only because the man was utterly brilliant with dialogue, but also with character motivation and philosophy. This line is all you need to know about Fletch. This is his philosophy, distilled, Occam's razor. Just as Westlake's Parker has a philosophy.

#Fletch #gregorymcdonald

I’m on a plane and just discovered that Jon Hamm is in the movie Confess, Fletch. I am SO EXCITED about this. I’ve read every book that Gregory McDonald has written about Fletch and Flynn and I love them — and I also feel that Jon Hamm is more aligned with the character than Chevy Chase (although neither is quite right tbh). Anyway here’s a random link about this https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/confess-fletch-jon-hamm-1234599812/ #confessfletch #jonhamm #gregorymcdonald