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DASHIELL HAMMETT

Name: DASHIELL HAMMETT
Author: Jo Hammett
ISBN: 0-7867-0892-1

A DAUGHTER REMEMBERS

by Jo Hammett & edited by Richard Layman & Julie M. Rivett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2001

A valuable addition to the biography of an underrated literary figure.

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Biographies of famous writers by their offspring usually have modest literary value, but this memoir is a cut above the rest.

Hammett’s best-known novels, The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, pioneered hardboiled detective fiction, and many critics consider him a literary master. His life was chaotic. Discharged after WWI because of tuberculosis, he married his pregnant nurse and struggled to earn a living in a series of jobs from Pinkerton detective to advertising copywriter. Within a few years, however, he began to write fiction, quickly developing his distinctively spare style. His first novel, Red Harvest (1929), enjoyed great success. A year later, The Maltese Falcon was a smash hit. In 1931, he met playwright Lillian Hellman, his companion for the rest of his life. By now he was living apart from his family, ostensibly because of TB. But he continued to support them when he could, visited often, and remained a generous, affectionate father. The ’30s were Hammett’s golden years. Money poured in from royalties and film sales. Never one to plan ahead, he spent it even faster. When he enlisted during WWII, the Army, suspicious of his leftwing politics, assigned him to the American equivalent of Siberia: the Aleutian islands. He enjoyed his stint immensely, however, editing the base newspaper and writing the official history of the Aleutian campaign. After the war, his life went downhill. He emerged from six months in prison for defying the HUAC to the blacklist. The IRS claimed most of his income. His health declined, and when he died in 1961, he hadn’t completed a novel in over two decades. Though the author undertakes no extended analysis of her father’s works, she candidly relates his drinking, gambling, womanizing (Hellman comes out surprisingly well), and attraction to Communism. As a bonus, her account is packed with family photographs, clippings, and mementos.

A valuable addition to the biography of an underrated literary figure.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-7867-0892-1

Page Count: 192

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL NONFICTION

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

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This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.