Raymond Chandler: A Biography

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Raymond Chandler is an uncensored look at the tortured man who wrote the classic mystery novels The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Using recently uncovered archival materials including personal papers and correspondence, biographer Thomas Hiney vividly evokes Chandler's early years in Nebraska, his education in England and on the corrupt streets of Los Angeles, and his later years as a novelist and screenwriter in the heyday of the Hollywood studio system. Along the way, he provides illuminating insights into the writer's inspirations and work - as well as accounts of Chandler's battles with alcohol addiction and his friendships with Howard Hawks, "Lucky" Luciano, S. J. Perelman, and Alfred Hitchcock. This book is also the first to fully detail the significance and complexities of his thirty-year marriage to Cissy, a woman seventeen years his senior. Raymond Chandler is personal portrait of an author as extraordinary as the fiction he created - a body of work that has sold more than five million copies, been translated into twenty-five languages, and inspired countless imitators. "A discerning portrait of the creator of Philip Marlowe, the archetypal American private eye." - Newsweek

Author: Tom Hiney
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 06/02/1999
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.02h x 6.01w x 0.92d
ISBN: 9780802136374

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 07/25/1999 pg. 24

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