Raymond Chandler was forty-four years old when he wrote his first story, an age when most writers have already established their careers, yet he was about to invent a new kind of American hero. Born on the 23rd of July 1888 in Chicago, Chandler spent his early years in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, before his father, a civil engineer and alcoholic, abandoned the family in the early 1890s. His mother, Florence Dart, a woman of Irish descent, took him to England in 1900 to secure a better education, and they lived in Upper Norwood, now part of the London Borough of Croydon, from 1901 to 1907. During this time, he attended Dulwich College, a public school that produced literary giants like P. G. Wodehouse and C. S. Forester, and spent summers in Waterford, Ireland, with his mother's family. He was naturalized as a British subject in 1907 to take the civil service examination, which he passed, but he resigned after just over a year, disgusted by the servility of the job. He then worked as a reporter for the Daily Express and The Westminster Gazette, but his writing career stalled until he returned to America in 1912, borrowing money from his uncle to start a new life in San Francisco and later Los Angeles. By 1931, he was a vice president at the Dabney Oil Syndicate, but his alcoholism, absenteeism, and personal scandals led to his dismissal in 1932, forcing him to turn to writing to survive the Great Depression. His first short story, Blackmailers Don't Shoot, was published in Black Mask magazine in 1933, and his first novel, The Big Sleep, followed in 1939, launching a career that would redefine the detective genre.
The Man Who Became The Detective
Chandler's creation of Philip Marlowe was not just a literary invention but a philosophical statement on the nature of heroism in a corrupt world. In his essay The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler wrote that the detective must be a complete man and a common man, yet an unusual man, one who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. Marlowe was a complex figure, a man who attended university, spoke some Spanish, and sometimes admired Mexicans and Blacks, yet he was also a student of chess and classical music. He was a man who refused a prospective client's fee for a job he considered unethical, a stark contrast to the stereotypical tough guy. Chandler's writing style, described by contemporary mystery writer Paul Levine as the literary equivalent of a quick punch to the gut, was inspired mostly by Dashiell Hammett, but his sharp and lyrical similes were original. He wrote that the muzzle of a Luger looked like the mouth of the Second Street tunnel, and that a man had a heart as big as one of Mae West's hips. His prose redefined the private eye fiction genre, led to the coining of the adjective Chandleresque, and inevitably became the subject of parody and pastiche. Yet, Chandler was often criticized during his lifetime for the rambling plots of his novels, with The Washington Post reviewer Patrick Anderson describing them as incoherent at worst, and even Chandler himself admitted he did not know who murdered the chauffeur in The Big Sleep. Despite these criticisms, his work enjoys general acclaim today, and his novels The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The Lady in the Lake, and The Long Goodbye have all made the Crime Writers' Association poll of the 100 best crime novels.