Reviews for The life of Dashiell Hammett

The average rating for The life of Dashiell Hammett based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-01-28 00:00:00 Ned Kozlowski As far as biographies go, this was fine? Hammett had a fascinating and extraordinary life, from impoverished Baltimorean Youth (Go Ravens!) to Pinkerton Agent to Tuberculosis patient to beloved novelist and bon-vivant to political dissident, and Johnson offers a nuanced and basically well-written view of the man. I found myself sort of annoyed at the brevity with which Hammet's time time as private investigator was given, which of course is more interesting than him being, say, an elderly alcoholic armyman in the Aleutians during WWII, but that might be because there isn't a lot of information on Hammet's life at that point, I'm honestly not sure. I'll keep it for the moment because I might have an idea for a Hammet related project, but as a rule only the most exceptional biographies tend to make my cut and I don't this will survive another move.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-12-05 00:00:00 Muthukumaran Rangaswamy This biography of one of my mystery writer idols didn't mince words in revealing Hammett with all his defects, faults, foibles and vices--I realize these are pretty much the same thing, and he pretty much had them all. The author presented a complete picture of an interesting man who was so much a man of his times and more. The picture was not a pretty one very much of the time. But still, I wish I'd known him--if anyone could really have known him. From the author's depiction, I suspect there was a lot of himself he never revealed to anyone including Lillian Hellman. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries, especially noir, and the middle years of the 20th century, but not to the faint of heart, not to those who wish not to be disillusioned. I'm no expert on biographies or autobiographies, but it's worth a read.