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Re: RARA-AVIS: _Hardboiled America_ and writer biographies 

Woolrich's life was pretty pathetic, living with his mom and what not. But
mostly I don't care much about writers' lives. To quote Chandler: 

"Why do people want biographical material? Why does it matter? And why
does a writer have to talk about himself as a person? It's all such a
bore."

His letter to Edgar Carter, Feb. 5, 1951, is a hilarious parodic response
to The Picture Post, which wanted info about Chandler's life. It begins,
"Yes, I am exactly like the characters in my books."

The Thompson biography is great, though.

----------------------------------------------------------
Michael D. Sharp, Dept. of English, University of Michigan
(msharp@umich.edu)                      

On Tue, 20 May 1997, William Denton wrote:

> On Tue, 20 May 1997, Richard L. King wrote:
> 
> : Well, I finally called the publisher, Da Capo, and was told that
> : yes, it is the same book with a different title. So, for those of
> : you who own it already, don't buy it (like I was about to do). It is
> : the same thing (and I'm glad it is being republished, I just don't
> : know why they had to change the title).
> 
> I bought _Savage Art_, Robert Polito's bio of Jim Thompson, the other
> day, and am reading it now.  It's full of information about him, with
> interviews with relatives and friends, a great deal of historial
> research, lengthy quotes from his autobiographical books, and
> pictures.  Thompson had a hell of a life, at least early on (he just
> graduated from high school, and he's already been rich, bankrupt,
> tubercular, alcoholic, and hospitalized), and I shudder to think
> what's coming up.
> 
> Then I got to flipping through _Hardboiled America_, and O'Brien
> summarizes what little was known at the time about Thompson's life in
> two pararaphs, saying there's a great deal to be done on the subject.
> It struck me that the Thompson revival was pretty big, for him to go
> from having little public history to being the subject of an
> award-winning (and thick) biography.
> 
> It also got me wondering who, among all the hardboiled writers we talk
> about, had the most interesting life.  (Or perhaps just early life).
> Thompson's was something I'd never want to live; Charles Willeford
> ended up living with his grandmother, then ran away during the
> Depression and bummed around for a couple of years before joining the
> army, getting stationed in the Phillipines, and ending up with a
> Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.  John D. MacDonald got an MBA or
> something, but during the war worked for the OSS (the forerunner of
> the CIA) in southeast Asia.  I can't remember a lot of details about
> Hammett's early life, but his days as a Pinkerton op are well known.
> They all seem to have had damned exciting lives, but I wonder if
> there's one who stands out over the others, or if one had a
> particularly boring life.  
> 
> Bill
> -- 
> William Denton : Toronto, Canada : buff@vex.net : Caveat lector.
> http://www.vex.net/~buff/        <-- Anything on io.org is toast.
> 
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