I'm with Mario and John. Spade isn't a particularly nice guy,
but I don't think his attitudes towards gays were at all
unusual for his times. And it's not like he was targeting
random gays. He was beating up those who threatened him and
his. Don't think he'd have reacted much differently if it had
been a straight man who pointed a gun at him, though he
probably would have given him a more "manly" beating, instead
of pointedly emasculating him by slapping him and taking away
his "gun."
As for gunsel, the Rara Avis site's glossary of hardboiled
slang contains Earl Stanley Gardner's story about how Hammett
got that word past editor Shaw and into the pages of Black
Mask. Here's the direct link:
http://www.miskatonic.org/gooseberry.html
Mark
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