RARA-AVIS: Re: Hammett's female characters

From: Victoria Esposito-Shea ( vmes@northnet.org)
Date: 07 Jan 2000


>I know there's been some mention of this topic, which is why I was
interested when I ran across
>this blurb in the front of the first Pocket Book printing of RED HARVEST
last night:
>
>"Dinah Brand is surely one of the most diverting characters in
contemporary fiction." -- Carl Van
>Vechten

And when Dorothy Parker reviewed THE GLASS KEY, she said: "And it is also true that [Hammett] is a good, hell-bent, cold-hearted writer, with a clear eye for the ways of hard women. . . ." Surely she had Dinah Brand, among others, in mind when she wrote this. (She also said that he was rotten at writing about upper-class women, but that you couldn't have everything.)

And yeah, I know Hammett was no fan of Parker as a human being. But I think she was nearly always dead on in her book reviews.

Later, Vicky

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