Good gossip is ageless, and literary gossip is the juiciest. Writers are intelligent, often articulate, and they travel in smart circles. This is especially true of the generation that emerged from World War I and the roaring ’20s. The exploits and adventures of the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Dorothy Parker are the stuff that contemporary writers’ fantasies are made of. Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Hellman came together in this era, and, though they often seemed star-crossed, they stayed together until Hammett’s death over 30 years later.

Hammett’s novel The Thin Man, published in 1934, was the last of a brilliant run that included “The Continental Op” series, and, of course, The Maltese Falcon. He battled alcoholism and depression, and by today’s parlance was probably a sex addict. Hammett’s Communist Party membership was a dangerous issue during the McCarthy era. For her part, Hellman’s prolific career began with a hit Broadway play and spanned decades. Late in life her memoirs were bestsellers.

A novel with this setup should write itself, but crafting a book like this is more difficult than it may seem. Readers who are drawn to this novel are probably at least somewhat familiar with the material. The author has to keep it fresh. Sam Toperoff’s strategy in Lillian and Dash is to change points of view, writing in the voice of Hammett, then Hellman, and also in third person. This works beautifully because Toperoff steers away from phony “noirisms” that could turn the work into parody.  Dash and Lillian give us straight talk, and their stories carry themselves.

“Lillian
didn’t speak again until they were in midtown traffic. ‘Tough flight?’

He reduced a paragraph to two words. ‘Very. Always.’

‘At least now it’s legal to get high while you’re high.’

‘Haven’t had a drink in about three weeks.’”

Both wrote for Hollywood, which makes the novel a great vehicle for guest stars. Louis B. Mayer and a host of movie stars move through the book. Toperoff uses subtle name dropping to give the reader a sense of the milieu. This was a time when literary authors were being recruited to write screenplays, a situation that produced some uneasy working relationships. Hammett’s distrustful attitude toward Mayer and other studio executives illustrates the age-old conflict between the artist and business people.

And, of course, the great literati of the times play their parts. The portrait of Hemingway is especially good, and the scenes set in Spain during the civil war are realistic and moving. Hemingway and Hellman worked together on “The Spanish Earth,” a classic documentary. Toperoff contrasts Hemingway’s romantic view of war with Hellman’s sadder and more realistic attitude. These scenes ring true.

“‘Look at
that,’ Hemingway said, ‘just look at it. Hell itself.’

‘I’d love to turn it back on the bastards.’

‘Of course. But look at it. Beautiful.’

‘Not beautiful to me.’

Hemingway wasn’t listening: “It’s sickening, but it’s beautiful too, a
modern war can be stunning.’”

Also true to life is Toperoff’s telling of Hellman’s and Hammett’s lives during the McCarthy era. They suffered greatly during those years yet stayed together. When the committee chairman calls Hammett “the least cooperative witness ever to have come before me, sir,” Hammett replies, “Did you ever consider the fact that your unconstitutional bullying might be the problem?” Hammett was tough under fire.

But this isn’t really a historical novel, and political comment is kept to a minimum. The book succeeds as a love story between two very large personalities. Both were tough in the way that their generation was tough, and both were a little skeptical about sentimentality, especially their own. And out of these attitudes came a style that characterized American letters in the first half of the 20th century: hardboiled and witty, but with an underlying tenderness hidden beneath the surface. This also characterizes Toperoff’s fine novel. He remains true to these conventions but also outside them, and shows the reader a more emotional view when appropriate. An expert could probably point to the places where fact deviates from fiction. But what’s important is that this is an excellent novel. Toperoff blends literary gossip, hard facts, and fiction seamlessly and comes up with a book that is both fun and deep.

Owen Hill’s latest novel is The Incredible Double (PM Press). He is currently working on the annotated edition of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. 

comments powered by Disqus