RARA-AVIS: Hammett's women


Victoria Esposito-Shea (vmes@northnet.org)
Tue, 26 Oct 1999 08:22:31 -0400


: while i don't walk around thinking "I'M A FEMINIST!!!", hammett's
depiction
: of women is the main reason i don't like his books much. apart from nora
: charles (who i believe is based on lillian hellman, a woman he clearly
: adored and respected, at least on some level), i find his women to be
: tiresomely cookie-cutter. they seem to be either the product of male
dreams
: or boyish girl fridays.

Martha,

Effie Perrine is certainly a girl Friday (I always wondered how much she got paid, actually), and certainly the women (other than Nora) in The Thin Man are nothing to write home about. But do the women in his other books really bother you that much? I always liked the tough, self-reliant grifters he wrote about--Dinah Brand and Brigid O'Shaughnessey and Angel Grace Cardigan and Aaronia Haldorn.

Just curious, Vicky

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