Dashiell Hammett
Page 1
Also by Sally Cline
BIOGRAPHIES and BOOKS ABOUT LIFE WRITING
Life Writing: Biography Autobiography and Memoir: A Writers’ and Artists’ Companion (with Carole Angier)
Lillian Hellman: Memories and Myths (forthcoming)
Zelda Fitzgerald: The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age’s High Priestess
Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John
LITERARY NONFICTION BOOKS
Writing Literary Nonfiction: A Writers’ and Artists’ Companion (with Midge Gillies)
Couples: Scene from the Inside
Lifting the Taboo: Women, Death and Dying
Women, Celibacy and Passion
Just Desserts: Women and Food
Reflecting Men at Twice their Natural Size (with Dale Spender)
EDITED BOOKS
As Series Editor:
Crime and Thriller Writing: A Writers’ and Artists’ Companion (Michelle Spring and Laurie King)
Writing Children’s Fiction: A Writers’ and Artists’ Companion (Yvonne Coppard and Linda Newbery)
Writing Historical Fiction: A Writers’ and Artists’ Companion (Celia Brayfield and Duncan Sprott)
As Editor:
Memoirs of Emma Courtney (Mary Hays)
FICTION
One of Us Is Lying
Copyright © 2014 by Sally Cline
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cline, Sally.
Dashiell Hammett : Man of Mystery / Sally Cline.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-61145-784-1 (hardback)
1. Hammett, Dashiell, 1894–1961. 2. Authors, American—20th century—Biography. 3. Detective and mystery stories, American—History and criticism. I. Title.
PS3515.A4347Z59 2014
813’.52—dc23
[B]
2013041870
Printed in the United States of America
To
BA SHEPPARD with great love
“It’s raining here but only on the streets where they don’t know you are coming”
(Dash to Lily)
Many hugs to
Theo, Marmoset, Arran,
and
Esme, Vic, Soren
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One EARLY YEARS, 1894–1922
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Part Two EARLY WRITINGS, 1922–1927
Chapter 4
Part Three PROFESSIONAL WRITER, 1927–1934
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part Four HELLMAN AND HOLLYWOOD, 1934–1936
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Five COMMUNISTS, FOXES, AND ARMY, 1936–1946
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part Six POLITICS, AUTUMN GARDEN, AND JAIL, 1946–1952
Chapter 14
Part Seven TOWARD THE END, 1952–1961
Chapter 15
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My most important acknowledgments are to Jo Hammett Marshall, Dashiell Hammett’s daughter; Julie Rivett, his granddaughter; and Peter Feibleman, Lillian Hellman’s heir and companion.
Jo and Julie in Los Angeles and Peter in Barcelona and New York fed me, drove me, talked for hours to provide me with crucial information. Together with Susan Feibleman and Rita Wade, Hellman’s secretary, they facilitated my access to Hammett and Hellman’s wide network of friends and relations with unstinting generosity.
In grounding my Hammett material, I have had invaluable help from biographer Richard Layman and gained illuminating insights from writers Carl Rollyson, Mark Estrin, Deborah Martinson, Joan Mellen, Tenneti Nagamani, Alice Griffin, Geraldine Thornsten.
Biographer Alice Kessler-Harris warmly invited me to join her on a Thelma-and-Louise road trip to Hardscrabble Farm and Katonah, where Kathy and George Piccorelli painstakingly showed us around Hammett’s last home.
I am immensely grateful to the eminent Hammett biographer, novelist Diane Johnson, and her assistant, Ashley Ratcliffe. Diane turned my Paris trip into a triumph, spending hours in reflective talk, then phoning and emailing me.
I have received several significant awards for which I am indebted: the Society of Authors Foundation Award; an International Hawthornden Fellowship (thanks to Drue Heinz and the Board); an Andrew Mellon Fellowship at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, followed subsequently by university archive privileges for three further years; a three-year Arts Council, England, Research Bursary (special thanks to Lucy Sheerman) to travel and work in Europe and the United States; Royal Literary Fund Writers Fellowships and Advisory Fellowships (great thanks to Steve Cook, Eileen Gunn, David Swinnerton), which meant I could write without financial insecurity.
Many archives and institutions have supported me, but five were outstanding: the Harry Ransom Center, Texas University, Princeton University, Stanford University, Wisconsin Historical Society, and Tulane University.
For several years’ support at the Harry Ransom Center I thank Thomas Staley, Richard Oram, Cathy Henderson, Debbie Armstrong, Bridget Gayle Ground, Richard Workman, Helen Adair, Jill Morena, Kurt Heinzelman, Tara Wenger, Lisa Talen, Pete Smith, Tom Best, Lynn Maphies, Debbie Smith, Bob Fuentes, Lauren Gurgulio, Gil Hartman, Linda Briscoe Myers, the patient archivist Bob Taylor, and especially my close friends Pat Fox and Margi Tenney, who helped with texts, photos, and university materials and shared food, drink, and heartening talks.
In Austin, I thank Martha Campbell for thirteen years’ accommodation and bountiful breakfasts; the Compuzone team for computer help; my friends Susan and Larry Gilg for stimulating discussions, computer loans, and two years’ elegant accommodation.
At Princeton University (Rare Books Department), I thank Charles Greene and AnnaLee Pauls for research help, illustrations, and photocopying and my friend Meg Rich, former Reference Librarian/Archivist, who, together with Stuart Rich, shared expertise, homegrown food, and accommodation. In Princeton, I am indebted to Kathleen Petersen and Peter Hahn for the tour around Hammett’s house, offered on the day they were moving out!
At Stanford University (Special Collections Department), I thank Robert Trujillo, Maggie Kimball, and particularly Polly Armstrong. Peter Stansky’s knowledge about the William Abrahams collection was invaluable, as was his comradeship. I was appreciative of support from Sally and Michael Stillman in Palo Alto, David Fechheimer, the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, and Don Herron for his walking tour of every Hammett site.
In Madison, Wisconsin I am indebted to Harry Miller at the Historical Society and to Susan Bernstein for feeding me!
In New Orleans at Tulane University, I thank Susan Tucke
r, Leon Miller, and the staff of Sophie Newcomb College and Research Center, the archivists at the New Orleans Official City Archives and New Orleans Notarial Archives, journalists on the Picayune State Item and the New Orleans Times, and Wayne Everard in the Public Library for his unfailing helpfulness and taped materials. I thank Christina Hernandez at Newcomb College Center for Research on Women, Susan Lawson, Kenneth Holdrich, and writer Curtis Wilkie for afternoon tea and talks. My guide-informant, Pattie Elliott, and my researcher, Helena Shoh, were invaluable.
I was accompanied on my research trips to New Orleans, Cleveland, Ohio, Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, and Austin, Texas, by my knowledgeable and indefatigable travel companion, art historian Anne Helmreich, who hosted me through libraries, archives, and photo collections and offered food and accommodation. In Cleveland, I was helped by Jean Piety and Elmer Turner at the Cleveland Public Library; Donald Burdick at the Cleveland Research Center, the Cleveland Western Reserve Historical Society; William C. Barrow in Special Collections, Cleveland State University Library; Jo Ellen Corrigan of the Plain Dealer; and the late Walter Leedy, founder of America’s most amazing postcard collection.
In New York, for interviews and information, I thank the late Barbara Hersey, the late Milton Wexler, the late Robbie Lantz, Denis Asplend, Joy Harris, Mike Nicholls, Richard Poirier, and for several years’ accommodation and support, Anne Gurnett and Jonathan Bander. In Canada, I thank Alisa Weyman, Cheryl Lean, Graham Metson. In Demopolis and Birmingham, for information on the Hellman Wyler Festival, I thank Cathy Wyler and William Gantt.
As the former writer in residence at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, I thank RLF Fellows Anne Rooney, Francis Spufford, Caron Freeborn; colleagues Colette Paul, Rowlie Wymer, John Gardener, Val Purton, Holly Clover, Rod McDonald (for a nearly impossible cassette tape repair); and former colleagues John Davies and Rebecca Stott. I thank Arbury Court Library, Cambridge Central Library, and Cambridge University Library.
For UK writing retreats in Sennen Cove, Cornwall, I thank Richard and especially Tracy Baker for reading drafts and for their kindness at the Atlantic Lodge.
For support of many kinds, I thank the Cambridge Women Readers, the late Jean Adams at Sunset Heights, Davina Belling, Sally Lawrence, Raymond Cormier, Alan French, Jane Jaffey, Christina Johnson, Stella King, Josie McConnell, Judy Jefford, Alison West, Olga Foottit, Mary Milne, Richard Nunan, and Andrew Lownie.
Most especially, I thank the late Joel Jaffey, Dr. Kate Grimshaw, Dr. Tom Alderson, Dr. Leonard Shapiro, Dr. Paul Flynn, Professor Peter Weissberg, Professor Morris Brown, and Professor Martin Bennett.
For audio transcriptions, textual permissions, and secretarial help, I thank Stephanie Croxton Blake, Angela North, Rachel Senior, Rebecca North, and Miranda Landgraf. For tape editing, I thank the BBC’s Amanda Goodman. For an immaculate bibliography, I thank Sally and Chris Peters. For skilled editing, reading the whole book, and wise words, I thank Chris Carling. For thirty-five years’ encouragement and counsel, I thank Kathy Bowles. For reviewing twenty chapters of a messy first draft, I thank former editor and friend Sheila McIlwraith.
Huge gratitude to biographers Millicent Dillon, chapter one’s first reader, and Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, who turned around a difficult chapter, and for boosts and backing, I thank writer friends Frankie Borzello, Katharine McMahon, Midge Gillies, Carole Angier, Neil McKenna, Michelle Spring, Yvonne Coppard, Hilary Spurling, and Cliff McNish.
Thank you, Barbara Levy, former literary agent and friend, who supported this book’s early stage challenges for six years.
Thank you, Rachel Calder, my good friend and literary agent, who has given her talents in creative planning of this biography. Thank you, Cal Barksdale, my editor at Arcade (Skyhorse), who has given the manuscript his detailed attention. Illustrative help beyond any call of duty goes to Sally Nicholls, my photo researcher.
Without the unstinting professional and personal help of Angie North and Rosemary Smith, this biography could not have been properly accomplished. As always, Angie has organized and cared for my house, cat, finance, and post and dealt calmly with every emergency in my frequent research absences. She has also sorted, transcribed, and retyped hundreds of Hammett’s penciled notes. I have relied again on the intellectual understanding and prodigious talents of my researcher Rosemary Smith, who organized endnotes, proofread, cut, and reformatted the entire book twice.
That IT wizard Glenn Jobson offered constant imaginative meticulousness to a nontechnical author.
My family and extended family have again backed me affectionately. First and most appreciated, my daughter Marmoset Adler, who has provided ideas, cuttings, photocopies, good listening ears, and constant encouragement. My stepdaughter Carole Adler van Wieck spent hours in New York sharing memories of her friend Cathy Kober, Arthur Kober, and Lillian Hellman. My late stepdaughter Wendy Adler Sonnenberg offered me witty Hammett/Hellman anecdotes. The late Larry Adler’s reminiscences of Hellman and Kober were invaluable, as were his powerful memories of Hammett and the McCarthy blacklisting. Vic Smith and Rick Wilson and my late daughter-in-law Laura Williams offered consistent support. My beloved Aunt Het (the late Harriet Shackman) enlightened every day. I wrote the last chapter the night before her funeral, as my gift to her. I thank cousins Jane, Paul, and Kathy Shackman for their loving support; and cousins Jonathan, Joan, Noam, and Danya Harris, who again fed me throughout the project. The young are amazingly helpful . . . thank you Esme and Soren, and, of course, my grandsons Theo and Arran.
My closest writer friend, novelist Jill (Ruby) Dawson, has inspired, stimulated, and propped me up.
I have been sustained for thirty-five years by Ba Sheppard, who, for this book, traveled with me to Barcelona for research, then read every word of the final draft before helping cut and edit. In Hellman’s words to Hammett, thank you for the short cord that the years of love and support make into a rope.
***
The author and publisher would like to thank the following for their kind permission to reproduce quotations:
The Harry Ransom Center, The University at Austin, for permission to publish quotations from manuscripts in their Dashiell Hammett Collection, including various Hammett/Knopf correspondence, and from their Lillian Hellman Collection.
Penguin Random House, for permission to quote from the following:
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, Orion Books, London, 2002, first published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1930.
Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man, Knopf, New York, 1934; Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1935.
Dashiell Hammett, The Big Knockover, ed. with introduction by Lillian Hellman, Vintage, New York, 1989.
Excerpt from Dashiell Hammett: A Life by Diane Johnson, copyright © 1983 by Diane Johnson. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
The Estate of Dashiell Hammett for permission to quote from the following works by Dashiell Hammett: unpublished manuscripts; The Maltese Falcon; The Thin Man; The Big Knockover; from Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett 1921–1960, ed. Richard Layman with Julie M. Rivett.
The Estate of Dashiell Hammett and Jo Hammett, for permission to quote from Jo Hammett Marshall, Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers, ed. Richard Layman and Julie M. Rivett.
The author would like to thank Sherri Feldman and Jennifer Rowley at Random House for their very hard work, Jane Gelfman of Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents, Joy Harris of the Joy Harris Literary Agency, and most especially Adam Reed at the Joy Harris Literary Agency for enormous help in securing textual permissions.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the author would be glad to hear from them.
INTRODUCTION
In five groundbreaking novels published in five years, one novella, and more than sixty short stories, Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) singlehandedly changed the face of detective fiction. He
influenced Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald and other writers, but more significantly, he transformed and subverted the detective novel form by his moral vision, propelling the mystery genre into literature.
He altered the method by which crime fiction worked, removed most of the detecting, and changed his few clues from dropped gloves to lies told.
Hammett’s books, which attempt to get at the truth behind crimes only to find there isn’t any one “truth,” offer the view that the world is ruled by meaningless, blind chance. Mysteries did not usually traffic in philosophy, but Hammett’s near nihilism resulted in crime stories that came to be viewed as literary classics.
Yet, there is an irony in a writer whose creed is one of moral ambiguity and random results choosing to write detective fiction, which is usually predicated on linear clues and an orderly progression of facts.
Similarly paradoxical is the fact that the places where Hammett was happiest were Pinkerton’s, where rules were preeminent; the army (in which he enlisted for the second time when far too old), with its military regimentation; and prison, with its punishing discipline. This may be related to Hammett’s gender preferences.
Though he seduced women, used whores, and was committed to Hellman as a social and occasionally sexual companion, he liked men. He favored male society. He sought male company, understood male loyalty, wrote about male betrayal. When men betrayed women, it was trivial; when men betrayed men, it was treachery.
A former private eye with Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, Hammett was the inventor of the hard-boiled detective, first the short, fat Continental Op, then the lean, tall Sam Spade, immortalized by Humphrey Bogart in the screen version of The Maltese Falcon, the best-known American crime novel of all time. His final invention, the glamorous figure of the Thin Man, was also made iconic with the aid of Hollywood.
Often identified with his hard-boiled heroes, Hammett, in fact, was an invalid most of his life, stricken early with tuberculosis from which he never recovered. He denied and refused to discuss this lifelong disease, which dramatically affected his masculine role. His status as a sick man occurred during a period when masculinity was defined by his peers Hemingway and Fitzgerald as tough and healthy. Men could be drunks. Men could be mentally disturbed. Men could be angry and violent. But constant sickness was not part of the masculine brief. Male invalids were seen as literally invalid. In this biography, I consider the consequences of Hammett’s struggle with sickness and the violation of his masculine identity.