Re: RARA-AVIS: The Dain Curse: 1920s HB

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 25 Sep 2002


Rene,

Re your comment below:

> I understood that the Op was modelled on a colleague
> of Hammett's at the
> Pinkerton agency, physical description and all.

Hammett always said that the Op was modeled on Jimmy Wright, who was Hammett's boss at Pinkerton's Baltimore office, and I certainly think he was being truthful when he said this. However, given that the Op was a working sleuth rather than a manager, that he told his stories in the first person, and that in one story ("Who Killed Bob Teal?") the magazine publisher actually identified the Op as "Dashiell Hammett of the Continental Detective Agency," I've always supected that, unconciously or not, the Op was, at least to a degree, a self-portrait, and that the constant reminders of his short stature a heavy-set build were Hammett's way of distancing himself from his character.

JIM DOHERTY

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