Apologies for double post on Red Harvest. Message window
didn't disappear so I punched the "Send" again.
Is it just the top 5 list, or did the turn to 2OO0 lead us
down this path? Love it.
As one of those who didn't put Hammett in my top 5, it had to
do with who I came to when. I didn't put Spillane down
either, even though I suspect that my war baby/postwar
generation growing up in the 50s tended to hit his stuff
before any of the others. Why didn't I put him down (and
perhaps should have)? Because he was simply a sensationalist,
adolescent male turn-on at the time, on a par with Peyton
Place and Tobacco Road and other books that dared to put
"those scenes" in print. I read Spillane first, but he didn't
lead to his betters. He just moved me out of the WWII action
series I happened to be stuck in (Dave Dawson) at the time.
Then Crime and Punishment, read as a teen, helped push me on
my way, but really it took films seen somewhat later to send
me back to the authors who matter (Postman to Cain; Getaway
to Thompson; Big Sleep to Chandler; Falcon to Hammett).
...which is probably why I tend to read hard-boiled or noir
more visually than I do other fiction.
Bill Hagen
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