This was a great book about the author's life, but I felt like it barely scratched the surface. The author sterilized Hammett's life, leaving out all of the fun stuff and downplaying the fact that he was a pretty terrible father. An okay read but I have a feeling there is probably a better book out there.

This biography of one of my mystery writer idols didn't mince words in revealing Hammett with all his defects, faults, foibles and vices--I realize these are pretty much the same thing, and he pretty much had them all. The author presented a complete picture of an interesting man who was so much a man of his times and more. The picture was not a pretty one very much of the time. But still, I wish I'd known him--if anyone could really have known him. From the author's depiction, I suspect there was a lot of himself he never revealed to anyone including Lillian Hellman.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries, especially noir, and the middle years of the 20th century, but not to the faint of heart, not to those who wish not to be disillusioned.

I'm no expert on biographies or autobiographies, but it's worth a read.

Bittersweet as fuck

Hammett's life was a unique one. An exemplar in both overachieving and underachieving, or an overgrown Holden Caulfield, the man was the profligate bar none. Johnson attempts, and for the most part succeeds in aping Hammett's "clear-eyed prose," and manages to keep the book going through Hammett's very long second act, during which very little happens... Well, he does go to jail, but even then, it is largely due to his own torpidity, and nothing happens there.

After reading Hammett's letters and another biography of Hammett, there was not much new left for Ms. Johnson to dig up. It was well written, and somehow, perhaps because Hammett and I have both spend time in the Aleutian Islands, I am addicted to reading about him. Like Hammett, I am largely self-educated. I like his sledgehammer style. After his Aleutian adventure, the communist trials and his time in jail are much less interesting. I don't hold it against him that he happened to catch the brain disease of the age- however I'm far less tolerant of 'wokesters.' What I do hold against Hammett is the beastly way he treated Lillian Hellman. He preferred visiting hookers to hooking up with her. She rejects him once, and he's done for life. Despite his incredible intellectual curiosity, he didn't have enough get-up=and-go to visit another country? So, yes, Hammett was a flawed man.

Mildly interesting. Given that this is an "authorized" biography, it was surprising that we get to see so many of Hammett's warts. Granted, there is a significant amount of excuse making, but the picture that emerges is not all that flattering.

By the way, I am not a robot. (It appears we have to click on that now to post a review.)

As far as biographies go, this was fine? Hammett had a fascinating and extraordinary life, from impoverished Baltimorean Youth (Go Ravens!) to Pinkerton Agent to Tuberculosis patient to beloved novelist and bon-vivant to political dissident, and Johnson offers a nuanced and basically well-written view of the man. I found myself sort of annoyed at the brevity with which Hammet's time time as private investigator was given, which of course is more interesting than him being, say, an elderly alcoholic armyman in the Aleutians during WWII, but that might be because there isn't a lot of information on Hammet's life at that point, I'm honestly not sure. I'll keep it for the moment because I might have an idea for a Hammet related project, but as a rule only the most exceptional biographies tend to make my cut and I don't this will survive another move.

Since I saw the film 'Julia' which starred Jason Robards as Dashiell Hammett and Jane Fonda, I've always been interested in the life of Hammett. I read The Maltese Falcon many years ago and really can't recall it, however he was a man who lived to his own beat and principles. I can wholeheartedly recommend this read.

Johnson's biography of Hammett takes the most unvarnished perspective of the books I've read, focusing mostly on his life and very little on his writing. Following the years of his life with only a brief discussion of his parents, Johnson presents the full biography authorized by Lillian Hellman (Layman, the author of ​Shadow Man​ complains quite a bit about Hellman in his preface, suggesting that she kept a stranglehold on biographers so she could write her preferred vision. Certainly, Hellman comes off nicely in the book, but she's actually not all that present). A few thoughts:

- Hammett really didn't think much of his detective stories. He was happy that they brought him money, but he always wanted to be a literary writer. I was particularly amused to learn that he mentioned new novel ideas in many interviews, even though he showed little (to no) evidence that he was working on them. At one point, after mentioning another new idea to a journalist, he wrote in a letter "It's nice to have a new novel not to work on."
- The other books acknowledged Hammett's womanizing, but this book made it clear that he was as hooked on women as he was on alcohol, not only chasing casual sex with casual partners, but also hiring prostitutes. Lots of prostitutes. He got the clap three times, and the third time he had to endure a three-day fever treatment to cure it.
- His time as a Pinkerton detective helped shape his later political views, in which he saw the bosses as cruel and corrupt, hence his socialist leanings. Once, when he was working to prevent union organizers from making headway, he was offered $5,000 to "take care" of union leader Frank Little. Hammett declined, but Little died a couple days later in a suspicious suicide. Hammett later attributed that experience to his allegiance with workers.
- Hammett believed strongly in the first amendment, and much of his support of communism and socialism was about defending peoples' rights to freedom of thought and assembly. Along those lines, Hammett may be the first Godwin. Hammett wrote that outlawing Communism was unconstitutional, and reminded his readers that the first thing the Nazis did was to make the Communist party illegal.
- He went on and off the wagon throughout his life, often going on major benders. But when the doctor told him if he kept drinking he would be dead in a month, he quit forever. Apparently the doctor expressed sad skepticism to Hellman that Hammett could stay dry, but Hellman knew he would -- he'd given his word.

​Dashiell Hammett: A Life​ is a well written, if depressing, sketch of a skilled writer who ruined himself with alcohol and debauchery. It's a fair book, though, that also highlights many of the good things he did, both on the page and off.

This is a good, old-fashioned, "authorized" biography of Hammett. Ms. Johnson doesn't whitewash Hammett, but she more or less gives him the benefit of the doubt and rarely condemns him. Some of his more sordid, despicable actions are described but not emphasized.

As for Hammett himself, he was an interesting, contradictory, person who led an interesting life. A sick man who outlived his most of robust counterparts, a middle-class communist, an independent thinker who liked the conformity of jail, the army and "party discipline", an antifascist who supported the Nazi-Soviet pact, a generous spendthrift who wrote only for money, an "honorable man" but also a tax cheat, adulterer, and deadbeat, a quiet thoughtful man but wild and mean while drunk - one could go on and on.

The best part of the book is a quote from Nunnally Johnson on why Hammett never wrote after 1934. In summary, he wrote fiction only for $$ and thought the Radio/Movie gravy train would never end. And when it did, he was too old and out-of-practice to write another novel. Makes sense to me.

Great biography of a great writer and complicated individual. Hammett came under fire during the McCarthy witchhunts and chose jail before giving up names of friends and colleagues. Doing time was no problem for a former Pinkerton agent more at home with murderers and thieves than literary types.

Hands down, a great read thanks to the skilled hand of biographer Diane Johnson.

Fairly interesting.