On Dashiell Hammett Robert S. Griffin Www.robertsgriffin.com ...
On Dashiell Hammett
Robert S. Griffin
www.robertsgriffin.com
Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was an American author best known
for his hardboiled detective fiction; The Maltese Falcon and The
Thin Man are prominent examples. Hammett’s enduring characters
include Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles. His last writing, just
before his death, was a 21,500-word fragment of a novel entitled
Tulip. The fragment was published after his death in the collection,
The Big Knockover: Selected Stories and Short Novels (New York:
Vintage, 1989). The central character in Tulip is a soldier stationed
in the Aleutian Islands during World War II along with someone
nicknamed Pop, who is transparently Hammett himself. The last
line of Tulip, and the last words of Hammett’s writing career, has
Pop saying, “If you are tired you ought to rest, I think, and not try
to fool yourself and your customers with colored bubbles.”
At Hammett’s memorial service upon his death at 66, the eulogy
praised his honor and bravery: “Never did he play anybody’s game.
He never lied. He never faked. He never stooped.”
