The Long Embrace
Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Raymond Chandler was among the most original and enduring crime novelists of the twentieth century. Yet much of his pre-writing life, including his unconventional marriage, has remained shrouded in mystery. In this compelling, wholly original book, Judith Freeman sets out to solve the puzzle of who Chandler was and how he became the writer who would create in Philip Marlowe an icon of American culture. Visiting Chandler's many homes and apartments, Freeman uncovers vestiges of the Los Angeles that was Chandler's terrain and inspiration for his imagination. She also uncovers the life of Cissy Pascal, the older, twice-divorced woman Chandler married in 1924. A revelation of a marriage that was a wellspring of need, illusion, and creativity, The Long Embrace provides us with a more complete picture of Raymond Chandler's life and art than any we have had before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist Freeman (Red Water) turns her obsession with Chandler and his beautiful wife, Cissy, into a kind of voyeuristic exploration of their unusual but symbiotic marriage. The creator of Philip Marlowe and author of such classics as The Long Goodbye and Farewell, My Lovely, remains an enigma and his much older wife (she lied to him about her age) is even more of a cipher. Freeman describes researching Chandler archives at both UCLA and the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and her pilgrimages to the extraordinary number of homes and apartments (more than 30) where the peripatetic Chandlers lived in California. She also consulted printed resources and interviewed some who knew the Chandlers late in their lives. She effectively uses passages from Chandler's fiction and letters to illustrate his battles with alcoholism, boredom, manuscripts and screenplays. Less effective are the many passages where Freeman tries to read too much from scanty clues (for instance, trying to guess which woman in a photograph is the one Chandler had an affair with). The result is an uneven account, part author's journal, part biography, of an unusual couple whose marriage survived against all odds and may have been the key factor that allowed Chandler to create his tarnished knight, Marlowe. Photos.
