Brian Wallace just dropped a link into my Inbox, Anne Diebel in The Paris Review ruminating on Hammett’s career as a writer — and much of it seems to be riffing off Nathan Ward’s bio The Lost Detective.
Kind of like I did with the Jesse Sublett review of The Big Book of the Op, I didn’t really read the article (honest, I already know all this stuff, right?).
I scanned down the wordage, spotted the refs to Nathan’s book, which got a lot of play here, and figured Mean Streets types might want to give it a glance, too. Or even read the whole thing.
And aside from the Nathan angle, I kind of like the Paris Review connection, too. Years ago I went to a big writers deal in Florida, and George Plimpton was one of the major figures in attendance. I was on a panel about biography with him. Incredibly nice guy — and a founder of The Paris Review.
In memoriam George Plimpton, then, hop on over to see what they’re doing in his mag today.