The moderator of this list has encouraged me to post this
question here, telling me "someone's bound to know," so let's
see.
I need to find a passage from one of Chandler's essays or
letters in which he's making fun of the vogue in hardboiled
novels at the time for anonymous first-person narrators in
imitation of Hammett's Continental Op stories (I believe
Chandler specifically mentions Hammett).
He goes on to say that he or someone else once gave a writer
who uses that kind of narrator this advice: that he call the
narrator Joe (I forget the specific name, that may be it), so
that when he picks up a phone the writer wouldn't have to use
a circuitous construction like "I answered the phone and
identified myself" but could simply write "I said, 'Hi, this
is Joe.'"
As you can see, I can recall the passage pretty clearly but I
need an exact citation.
I do appreciate any help with this.
Alan
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