Chris asked:
> And, if there are writers one could point
to
> as Hammett acolytes, who exactly would those writers
be?
Donald Westlake: "When I was 14 or 15 I read Hammett's The
Thin Man (the first Hammett I'd read) and it was a defining
moment. It was a sad, lonely, lost book, that pretended to be
cheerful and aware and full of good fellowship, and I hadn't
known you could do that: seem to be telling this, but really
telling that; three-dimensional writing, like
three-dimensional chess. Nabokov was the other master of
that."
Tony Hillerman: "If not the greatest, Dashiell Hammett is
certainly the most important American mystery writer of the
twentieth century, and second in history only to Edgar Allen
Poe, who essentially invented the genre."
Ross Macdonald: "As a novelist of realistic intrigue, Hammett
was unsurpassed in his own or any time."
P.D. James lectured here in San Francisco and said that
Hammett is her favorite writer. Not her favorite genre
writer--favorite writer period.
James Ellroy has written of about his admiration of
Hammett.
Joe Gores, of course.
Don Herron wrote an Op-inspired short story that appeared in
Dennis McMillan's Measures of Poison anniversary anthology
and is working on more stories with the same character.
Walter Satterthwait also wrote a series of stories inspired
by the Op.
How much does Bill Pronzini's anonymous San Francisco
detective owe to Hammett?
Raoul Whitfield started writing before Hammett, then changed
his style in obvious imitation.
Erle Stanley Gardner denied that Hammett influenced his
writing, but if you compare Gardner's early mystery stories
with Perry Mason, there can be little doubt that Hammett's
stripped-down style rubbed off on Gardner.
Charles Willeford wrote about his admiration of The Maltese
Falcon, saying that he re-read it every year.
How about acolytes outside the mystery genre?
Jack Kerouac described his own style as coming from Hammett
(in On The Road he mentions San Francisco being the city of
Sam Spade).
Kerouac wrote something about William Burroughs' novel Junkie
being Hammett-inspired.
Lillian Hellman was not a writer of consequence until after
she met Hammett.
Not to mention people who read Hammett and became detectives,
like David Fechheimer, who read The Maltese Falcon, went to
the nearest Pinkerton office, asked if they needed anybody
with a beard, and has been an investigator ever since, or
George J. Thompson, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on
Hammett and quit teaching English to become a cop.
"So numerous have Hammett's progeny been-indeed the whole
subgenre of cops and robbers stories that still flourishes in
our popular media was ushered in by Hammett's break with the
tradition of detective fiction he inherited-that much of the
stunning freshness which earlier readers encountered in his
work has inevitably been lost. Hammett invented the modern
urban detective story; its poses, its dialogue, its rhythms,
its ethos, its heroes and villains. There was nothing like
them before Hammett, and much of what has come after has been
mere variations-however talented, however clever-on the forms
he created." -Dennis Dooley, Dashiell Hammett
(New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1984), p xii.
Vince Emery Specialist in marketing communications Author,
public speaker, teacher, and consultant Box 460279, San
Francisco, CA 94146 USA
vince@emery.com Phone 1.415.337.6000
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