What are you reading?

[scream ale]

Just about to start on some Raymond Chandler. I checked Collected Stories out of the library. I think I've read some of his stuff before. Probably in that Black Mask collection mentioned above.

[Hugh]

He had a famous wife too, no? I like his writing very much. He’s easy to read. He’s fast. The other guy, Chandler is like being stuck in the mud on a rainy night. The Maltese Falcon was first published as a serial in Black Mask Magazine. I have that series in The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories. There were changes of course from the five part serial to the actual novel. Still, good stuff.

Lillian Hellman. They never married though.

[Hugh]

Just finished a biography of Hart Crane. Some of these drinking writers were real assholes, but I think Crane was the worst. He once busted up a friend's record collection then tried to throw the Victrola out a second story window. Then he said, "My father's a millionaire! What's yours?" Oddly, the friend forgave him and even invited him back for more parties. Crane was even an asshole when he wasn't drunk. Just a fucking pest. People used to lock their doors and refuse to answer when he came by because he talked so fucking much. For a while he stayed in a boarding house with Allen Tate and his wife. Part of the deal was the three tenants were to help out around the house - chopping wood, cleaning, etc. Crane never did his part. When Allen Tate complained to the landlady about it she just said Hart was a nervous, sensitive type and wasn't able to do the work. One day Allen Tate overheard Crane telling the landlady that Allen Tate's woodchopping left a mess and he got in Crane's face about it. Allen and his wife had to lock their doors so they could work because Crane was always bothering them with endless chit chat.

Put a hold on a Dorothy Parker biography at the library. Can't wait to read it.

[Thompson]

You are a master Hugh, I love you.