Dashiell Hammett changed the face of crime fiction. In five novels published over five years as well as a string of stories, he transformed the mystery genre into literature and left us with the figure of the hard-boiled detective, from the Continental Op to Sam Spade—immortalized on film by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon—and the more glamorous Thin Man, also made iconic with the aid of Hollywood. A brilliant writer, Hammett was a complex and enigmatic man. After 1934 until his death in 1961, he published no more novels and suffered from a writer’s block that both shamed and maimed him. He is identified with his tough protagonists, but his tuberculosis compromised his masculine identity and alcoholism may have been his answer. A former Pinkerton detective who valued honesty, he was attracted to women who lied outrageously, most notably Lillian Hellman, with whom he conducted a thirty-year affair. A controversial political activist who stood up for civil liberty, he was also a very private man. In this compact new biography, Sally Cline uses fresh research, including interviews with Hammett’s family and Hellman’s heir, to reexamine the life and works of the writer whom Raymond Chandler called “the ace performer.”
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Sexual Content - 1/5
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Violence - /5
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Language - /5
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Drugs and Alcohol - 2/5
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Summary
This exploration into the life of Dashiell Hammett exposes the reader to some interesting but little-know facts of his life. He is best known for writing novels such as The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, but this book delves more deeply into the writer himself. It starts with his struggles to get a book published and takes the reader through his somewhat glamorous life with famous stars of that era - his sexual preferences, his many love affairs and his inner struggles with his ongoing illness, paired with his love of alcohol. Dashiell also suffered the worst thing an author can endure - writer's block! This book tells of the life of this famous author along with all the ups and downs and many insights of facts that we never knew about this man.