Raymond Chandler: A Biography

Forty years after his death Chandler was in need of a new study, both of his life and of his writing. This one strikes me as dealing with the former better than with the latter, but it has interesting and illuminating things to say about both. However what I want to commend the book for above all is just how readable it is. Chandler himself had some trenchant and uncomplimentary things to say about some of the more intellectual kinds of writing, creative as well as critical, Hiney quotes some of these with evident approval, and I fancy the book was written with a sense of Chandler's ghost looking over the biographer's shoulder, alert to detect and deflate pretentiousness. Chandler's story is a triumph of talent over alcoholic insecurity. He never knew his alcoholic father, and he was educated through the charity, far from affectionate but very real and very patient and long-suffering, of an uncle. He attended one of England's better schools, presided over by one of the more enlightened headmasters of the time. This headmaster instilled a distaste for insincerity and pretence that stayed with Chandler to the end. Chandler was always a bit of a loner. In his early years his only real relationship was with his hard-pressed mother, and he displayed an innocence that stayed with him throughout his life too that lurks behind the seeming worldliness and disillusionment that he displays both in his books and in his dealings with the world around him. He once said of himself that he `could be a good second-rate anything.' This was a fairly modest self-assessment, given his brains and astuteness. He achieved rapid promotion in his Californian oil company through his gift for figures and his alertness to fraud until his drinking brought that career to an end. His later business dealings were also fairly savvy, both in Hollywood and in relation to his publishers and agents, and his sheer ability ensured that although he died a booze-sodden ruin he did not die a poor one. He seems even to have possessed real interpersonal ability too through his wit and charm whenever he could be bothered to exercise it. However to the end of his days he made few friends and retained fewer. After his mother's death he cared greatly for nobody in particular with the solitary exception of his hyperbolic devotion to his wife. Innocent in some ways to the end, he had fallen for her claim to be ten years younger than she was, and their relationship reads to me less like some grand passion than like the tale of a shipwrecked mariner who has developed a strong affection for the lifebelt that is keeping him afloat. On the literary side, there are copious quotations from Chandler's letters, which is a good thing for giving us some of his less-known wisecracks. I had expected to see more about The Simple Art of Murder, the article in which Chandler expounds his ideas of the detective story and of Marlowe. However one mystery was solved for me. When young I knew the seven Marlowe nove

Hiney does a superb job of chronicling the life of one of the most gifted writers this century. Throughout the course of the biography it is hard to find a prolonged spell (five years or so) where Chandler is reasonably content. Hiney though dosen't dwell too long on Chandler's obvious unhappiness but rather more on what he managed to produce. It's a shame that his alcoholism prevented him from completing more novels or screenplays (Double Indemnity, what cracking dialogue!). What is clear from Chandler's work, and this is something which Hiney clearly shows, is that Chandler was streets ahead of his contemporaries writing in the same genre and he knew it.Having read Chandler's Marlowe novels without knowing anything about the authors life I would say this biography is a worthwhile read. It is often the case that biographies are weighty tomes which dwell too much on detail. Hiney has managed to condense Chandler's life perfectly. After all Hiney knows that it is not the alcoholism, the affairs etc which first brought Chandler to our attention. It was the poetic writing and the clever dialogue.Well done Mr. Hiney.

a brutally, honest but well-written biography of one of America's greatest writers. Hiney explores the dark, destructive side of Raymond Chandler which fueled his pioneering novels. A tortured soul, Chandler wasn't afraid to gaze into the seedier side of human nature and bring it into the popular literature of his time. Many people have forgotten his contribution to American literature, but Hiney delivers a biography that does justice to the writer by exploring the motivations behind his insightful and disturbing books. If you don't see the appeal of Chandler's work, read this, then try again. I think things will be clearer.

This is a excellent biography of a complicated and tortured man.I have enjoyed the ' Philip Marlowe books' for years and had a read a earlier bio about Chandler. It is a touching book as you read about Chandler's self destrutive ways you want to reach in there and shake him and say ' Stop it'!...Excellent book......

Raymond Chandler had the cohones to be politically incorrect when being correct was the only way to go. This is a fabulous bio and anyone who ever picked up a the Long Goodbye or anything else by RC owes it to his or herself to read this book. You also might want to pick up a copy of the richard greenwald's - spear- its pretty damned good