Dashiell Hammett: Life

by Diane Johnson

Book Overview

Dashiell Hammett: A Life, by Johnson, Diane This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394505018
• ISBN13: 9780394505015
• Release Date: September 1983
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Satisfactory Biography of Hammett with Cooperation of Family

Among the flurry of Dashiell Hammett biographies in the early to mid-1980s, "Dashiell Hammett: A Life" was written by Diane Johnson with the cooperation of Hammett's longtime companion Lillian Hellman and his daughters Jo Hammett Marshall and Mary Hammett Miller. Johnson has avoided extrapolating emotions and motivations behind Hammett's actions, but instead relied on his letters for insight, sometimes printing the letters in between her prose. The book follows Samuel Dashiell Hammett from his birth in Maryland in 1894 to his death in 1961. Since Hammett stopped writing books and stories in 1934, two thirds of this biography concerns his post-literary life. Johnson discusses the work for Pinkerton National Detective Agency that informed Hammett's writing, but not in much detail. His frequently failing health, alcoholism, and relationships with family and playwright Lillian Hellman are treated in depth, as are his trial, 6 months incarceration for refusing to say if he was a bail-fund trustee for the Civil Rights Congress, and testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the 1950s. Unfortunately, there seems to be a great deal of information about Hammett's flamboyant lifestyle and politics after he stopped writing and comparatively little while he was a working stiff and struggling writer. He was seen and known by everyone in middle age, but his more productive years were either less documented or altogether simpler. Diane Johnson has peppered her prose with seldom published pieces of Hammett's writing: articles, advertising copy, book reviews, poetry, and many letters, which is informative, in itself, but doesn't affect the writing style favorably. And Johnson has an annoying habit of lapsing into a childish style in which his daughters describe Hammett from a child's point of view, calling him "Papa". The quality of the writing in "Dashiell Hammett: A Life" is mediocre, but Hammett fans will appreciate the information, and the book does benefit from the insights of Hammett's daughters.