The Long Goodbye

I don't often write reviews. To paraphrase the cookbook author Ed Brown, the world needs more books, not more critics. So when I came home from the library with the first title I recognized by Raymond Chandler, I didn't know what a ride I was in for.

I quickly found out they call the genre noir for a reason. Maybe it's because every paragraph begins with a pithy observation delivered head-on in the first-person singular. Maybe it's something else, like the way every time something is revealed, something else is concealed. Maybe it's the strange juxtaposition of cool, continental French set in the stifling hot California sun. Or maybe it's just the negativity that oozes from every page, along with the smells of gin, sweat, and hibiscus. Search me, I'm just another small-timer in a big-time racket.

Whatever it is, I was drawn into the web of events faster than a Mexican houseboy can pull a switchblade on an unwanted visitor. The author's voice soon became indistinguishable from the protagonist's, and I began to eye each new character suspiciously, knowing that genuine human kindness is about as rare as an honest cop or an innocent hooker. I started another chapter as I lingered over dinner, and I nursed my rum and tonic as if it was an expertly made gimlet, hold the bitters.

It's hard to explain how a guy gets drawn into imaginary events that were written fifty years ago and imitated thousands of times by lesser talents. Writing that's a little racist, a lot sexist, more than a little angry and jaded, and probably what you'd call mysanthropic if you had a dictionary handy. And irresistible, despite the countless attempts to steal its magic. Is it "literary fiction"? Ask somebody who cares. But this guy Chandler knows his way around a paragraph, and his characters are a kick in the kisser.