Shadow Man: Dashiell Hammett, his granddaughter, and me

"Shadow Man" by Peter Rozovsky
for Detectives Beyond Borders

Shadow Man is the title both of Richard Layman's 1981 biography of Dashiell Hammett and of the self-portrait at left, which I shot last night.

Today I had lunch with Hammett's granddaughter and editor Julie M. Rivett, who is visiting my part of the world to talk to high school students and other groups about Hammett and The Maltese Falcon.

Richard Layman, Julie M.
Rivett. Photo by your humble
blogkeeper.

Rivett, who joined Layman in a discussion I moderated at Bouchercon 2015,  talked Hammett, and we discussed one of last year's best non-fiction crime books, Nathan Ward's The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett.  I was also tickled to learn that Rivett is a big fan of James Lee Burke, whom I've begun to read as part of my recent but abiding love affair with New Orleans. We talked at some length about Burke and his writing, which Rivett knows a lot better than I do. The woman has good taste in crime writers, whether she is their lineal descendant or not.

© Peter Rozovsky 2016

My Bouchercon 2015 panels — Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers

Yesterday's reading was the most touching I'll likely do for this year's Bouchercon or maybe any other year's, as well. I'm too busy preparing to make a full post about Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers, so I'll offer a few selections from the book that seem especially pertinent to Hammett's work and life. Fuller treatment may follow next month at Bouchercon 2015 in Raleigh, N.C. , when I moderate a discussion with the book's two editors, Richard Layman and Julie M. Rivett. The discussion is called "Inside the Mind and Work of Dashiell Hammett," and happens Saturday, October 10, at 8:30 a.m.

The author of A Daughter Remembers, Jo Hammett, is Dashiell Hammett's daughter and Rivett's mother. As you might guess, the book, published in 2001, is full of family photos and recollections of family life. This is especially valuable in the case of a writer as private, as sparing of information about himself, as Hammett was.  Jo Hammett also has a better eye and ear for what made Hammett a great writer than do many who have written about him. She's also capable of an occasional flash of delightful, stinging wit, which makes her sound a bit like her father. Here's some of what she has to say in this memoir:

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"Red Harvest comes out of Black Mask days. It's got Black Mask rough edges and give-it-all-you're got energy. The later novels are smoother, more finely tuned. But this is the one I like best, because it's hard like its people. funny and unforgiving, and sounds most like Papa."

*

"`Lock me in a room with a set of encyclopedias, and I'll come up with a plot,' [Hammett] used to say. His idea of heaven was going cross-country in a train compartment, in his pajamas, reading all the way."

*

"[Hammett] took Mary and me backstage to meet Ethel Barrymore ... She was charming to us and very regal. In a parting remark she said something to him about the play having `great social significance,' perhaps thinking that would strike a sympathetic chord with him. He was quick to agree. `Oh, yes, absolutely.'  I could tell by the look on his face he was thinking, `Yeah, about as much as Krazy Kat.'"

*

"Papa had a generally low opinion of actors. He despised their self-pre-occupation and their ruthlessness."

© Peter Rozovsky 2015

A wandering granddaughter job: My Bouchercon Hammett panel

Here's a post from December 2013 that is more relevant today than ever. I'll be discussing Dashiell Hammett with Julie M. Rivett and Richard Layman at Bouchercon 2015 in Raleigh, N.C., next month in a session called "Inside the Mind and Work of Dashiell Hammett."  The Bouchercon schedule calls it a special event, and I agree. Hammett was the best ever, and Julie and Rick know more about him than just about anyone else. See you there; the fun starts at 8:30 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 10.

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Julie M. Rivett, co-editor of The Hunter and Other Stories, the new volume of previously uncollected and unpublished work by Dashiell Hammett, drove up from Orange County to chat with Detectives Beyond Borders about the book, Hammett, the movie interpretations of his work, his critical reception at home and abroad, and other subjects—including some of her favorites among current crime writers.

Rivett is not just a Hammett scholar and researcher, she's also the daughter of Hammett's daughter Jo (she met her grandfather once, when she was 3 years old) and, she says, "What I want to come from this is that people will read [Hammett's work] as literature. I want to make him a rounder character."  Your humble blogkeeper says the book, co-edited with the noted Hammett biographer and scholar Richard Layman, will do just that, especially in the form of "The Secret Emperor."

Rivett says the combination of her personal contacts and Layman's professional ones strengthens their partnership. (They also worked together on Return of the Thin Man, which brought together two previously unpublished stories about Nick  and Nora Charles.) And, asked about the portrayals of Hammett as a communist, a drunk, or a bad family man, Rivett rebuts some of the stories, concedes others, and says: "It's always a difficult thing for me when people co-opt my actual grandfather."

Her list of favorite contemporary crime writers includes Declan Hughes, Dennis Lehane, Michael Koryta, and George Pelecanos, and if I were a crime writer favored by a descendant and scholar of the greatest of all crime writers, my sinews would come unstrung and my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth for a few minutes before I was able to resume writing.

Coming soon: Rivett on Hammett's reception in France and Italy, and the possibility of more Hammett material to come.

***

Rivett and I met for tea and a wine chaser at the Musso & Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard, close to stars on the Walk of Fame that honor several figures prominently connected with Hammett's life, career, and interests. Mary Astor's, Myrna Loy's, and Fatty Arbuckle's stars are within a block and a half of the restaurant, and later I found Peter Lorre's and also the one that honors some guy named Bogart. Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet were perfect for their roles in John Huston's celebrated film version of The Maltese Falcon, Rivett said, and Bogart, she added, while not physically perfect for the role, did marvelous things with the character.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

My Bouchecon 2015 panels

The Bouchercon 2015 schedule is up, and I'll be moderating a couple of good panels, including one special event.  On Thursday, October 8 (Thursday, 8 October, for our English friends) I'll moderate "Beyond Hammett, Chandler, Spillane, and Macdonald," in which authors, editors, and other experts in present-day crime fiction talk about their favorite lesser-known, less-remembered crime writers of the past.

This year's lineup includes Sarah Weinman on Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, Kevin Burton Smith on Norbert Davis, Jordan Foster on Ted Lewis, and, Mark Coggins on Paul Cain in a late-breaking addition, Laura Lippman, who will discuss that mysterious writer TBA.

On Saturday, October 10, at 8:30 a.m., I'll discuss the greatest crime writer ever with two of the people who know his work and life best. The discussion is called "Inside the Mind and Work of Dashiell Hammett," and the two insiders are Julie M. Rivett, Hammett's editor and granddaughter; and Richard Layman, Hammett's biographer and perhaps the leading name in Hammett scholarship.  This is an especially good time to talk about Hammett, what with Nathan Ward's new book and this past spring's donation of two major collections of Hammett's papers to the University of South Carolina. Layman donated one of the collections, Hammett's family the other, so this panel will be the center of the Hammett universe, and I hope you'll all attend.

Bouchercon 2015. The time: Oct. 8-11, 2015. The place: Raleigh, North Carolina. See you there.

© Peter Rozovsky 2015

Hammett, his granddaughter, his editor, and me in The Philadelphia Inquirer

A long-lost work by Peter Rozovsky surfaces in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer: my review of Dashiell Hammett's The Hunter and Other Stories, interspersed with comments from my interview with Julie M. Rivett, a co-editor of the volume and also Hammett's daughter's daughter.

Yes, it was a wandering granddaughter job.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

One city, one crime novel — but which novel?

I have in the past gently chided the Free Library of Philadelphia for the high-mindedness of its "One City, One Book" choices. Why can't Philadelphia do what other cities and institutions have done and sneak a Chandler or a Hammett in there once in a while?

Hammett has long enjoyed popular and critical esteem, and his work, I was surprised to learn recently, can appeal to younger readers. Julie M. Rivett, Hammett's granddaughter and recent editor, told me last week: "I talk to kids about Hammett. The Maltese Falcon has helped reach some reluctant readers."  Teenagers, she said, responded especially to the novel's celebrated "Flitcraft Parable," a story of sudden, cataclysmic, arbitrary change.

Alan Glynn's novels could serve as a springboard for discussion of corporate and government infiltration into our lives. Kevin McCarthy's could meet American interest in its immigrant populations and their histories. So could Paco Ignacio Taibo II's. Same with Andrea Camilleri's, which would also tally nicely with the boom of interest in cable television food shows and diversity in dining. Want a contemporary view of China? How about Qiu Xiaolong's Death of a Red Heroine?

If Philadelphia wants to stay local, why not David Goodis' Black Friday? Sympathy for the downtrodden. Survival against daunting odds. Finding one's own destiny.  Black Friday is full of big themes, the sort of thing to generate big discussion and draw in even readers who have not read the novel. Or how about Hammett's Red Harvest? That book would lend itself easily and deliciously to discussion of Philadelphia's history of rotten politics.

Or what about— But that's where you come in. What crime novel or story collection would you have your city, county, province, state, or country read? And why? It's not enough that the book be good or great. It must have the potential to appeal to readers young and old, to crime fans as well as to those who normally don't touch the stuff, and to those who might need a nudge to pick up a book in the first place. How does your choice meet these criteria? How will it grab readers the way "The Flitcraft Parable" snared Julie Rivett's teenage existentialists?
 
 © Peter Rozovsky 2013