The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved | Judith Freeman

The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved | Judith Freeman | LOS ANGELES EMBRACED

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The Long Embrace: ...

	The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved Judith Freeman Pantheon, 2007 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Raymond Chandler was one of the most original and enduring crime novelists of the twentieth century. Yet much of his pre-writing life, including his unconventional marriage, has remained shrouded in mystery. In this compelling, wholly original book, Judith Freeman sets out to solve the puzzle of who Chandler was and how he became the writer who would create in Philip Marlowe an icon of American culture.

Freeman uncovers vestiges of the Los Angeles that was terrain and inspiration for Chandler?s imagination, including the nearly two dozen apartments and houses the Chandlers moved into and out of over the course of two decades. She also uncovers the life of Cissy Pascal, the older, twice-divorced woman Chandler married in 1924, who would play an essential role in how he came to understand not only his female characters?and Marlowe?s relation to them?but himself as well.

A revelation of a marriage that was a wellspring of need, illusion, and creativity, The Long Embrace provides us with a more complete picture of Raymond Chandler?s life and art than any we have had before.

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Down these mean streets a woman must go

"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid", Raymond Chandler wrote of his knight-errant protagonist Phillip Marlowe in a famous essay titled "The Simple Art of Murder". Like Marlowe, Judith Freeman takes us down those mean streets and the decay of Los Angeles since Chandler lived there from the 1930s into the 1950s. So little is known about Cissy (Pearl) Eugenie Pascal, Chandler's wife 18 years his senior, that this work obviously required a great deal of rumination on Freeman's part about the strange relationship between this odd couple. Despite the dearth of material about her, the author has been extremely thorough and unrelenting on her research and the book will rest significantly on its laurels as the most definitive work on the subject. As she acknowledges, she is greatly indebted to both Frank McShane's biography of Chandler and his edited collection of Chandler's letters. In her seeking out the 30-plus known residences of the Chandlers over the years, Freeman's search for the real Cissy has a "Waiting for Godot" type quality to it, often finding the addresses no longer esisted as the structures that stood there had been demolished. Freeman is driven by a complusion and obsession to uncover a past she know she cannot fully present but her persistance is admirable. One senses that a great weight must have been lifted from her when she finally completed the book. "Embrace" also delves heavily into Chandler's personality with a few pages on the question of whether he had latent homosexual feelings which at times bled over into jhis work, although this is minutiae of small significance. I thought I was long done with Raymond Chandler and would probably have passed this one up but I'm glad I didn't. I know all too well searching the streets of southern California for places and people that no longer exist or existed only in my youth. In the early 1970s I went looking for 77 Sunset Strip, only to learn that no such address ever existed, and the exteriors for the early '60s TV show were shot at Dean Martin's pizza joint in the 8000 block. I remember searching for an apartment building 35 years later formerly on Gower off Hollywood Boulevard then and now just a chain-linked parking lot. Sometimes I wonder whether Chandler, like Ross Macdonald, will withstand the test of time, the Chandler LOA editions notwithstanding. Some of Chandler's work didn't make a whole lot of sense ("The Big Sleep" in particular) and while writing he often didn't know where his plot turns would end up. The last decade's new generation of noir has far superceded their works. But the steaming sidewalks of L.A. and other Southern California towns still haunt me to this day, as do the writers present at the Creation.

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LOS ANGELES EMBRACED

This book captured me on many levels.
I found in this book, not only a love and reverence for Raymond Chandler, but also for Los Angeles.
I think that the Long Embrace is really the embrace of Los Angeles.
An embrace that impacted Chandler and Freeman and readers.

I am a native of Los Angeles and in the age bracket beyond midlife. I understand the journey and searching for a person's and a city's history.
I enjoyed her almost tangible manipulations of Los Angeles sights, sounds, textures and smells. I recognize her experiences as my experiences lovingly put into words. I recognize many of the streets and areas.

Also, my own memories of a Los Angeles with oil wells pumping,
where we did not have to lock our car or house doors at night!
Of a time when the building of the Music Center downtown showed that we were not a "hick town".

A city where some of the best places are hidden away from the traffic and the tourists still to this day.

Freeman's research intertwines Chandler and Los Angeles.
She brings up questions and presents answers about
the impact on Los Angeles of the automobile, oil, films, police corruption and the unlikely heroes that reveal themselves in the midst of it all. (as Chandler did)

It is interesting to finally learn about Chandler's wife, Cissy.
As to her giving the incorrect age- all the women friends of my mother and grandmother's did not give their true age. I remember them telling me " a woman never gives her true age". Children and men were not supposed to ask. I know of women who refused to use Medicare benefits because they did not want to reveal their true age.
It was not unusual(among some circles) for creative women to have real loving relationships with younger men or gay men. (i.e. Neysa Mcmein-artist).

Judith Freeman has real skill at blending research, fiction and her own interpretations on her lovingly selected subjects. She continues in the same vein in this book.

If you are familiar and enjoy her writing you will love this one.
If you are a Los Angeles native (whether born here or relocated here) you will enjoy learning more about your city.

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You need to be a Chandler fan

This is a book especially for Raymond Chandler fans, who not only have read his books, but have read them a second time and enjoyed them even more.

The writer is obviously in love with Chandler and lovingly
describes his life in a fascinating travel of where he
lived, what he did while there, and the most important,
his relationship with his wife and how the relationship
influenced his writings ( and perhaps veiwpoint.)

I also enjoyed the writer's similies and approach. She
was almost an anthropologist in her study; perhaps she
was.

I think it is a fascinating book for those who don't
know Raymond Chandler, but most definitely an important
book for those who are Raymond Chandler fans.

I couldn't put it down, and re-read certain parts, too.

Kit Menkin

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a must for Californians

Interesting biography about a very unusual couple. The history of LA was a real added benefit to readers of the book.

More research and less imagination

Judith Freeman relies heavily on inspiration and imagination to flesh out Raymond Chandler's very full but incomplete life in her book "The Long Embrace." But more thorough research might have gotten better answers to all the questions she raised about Raymond Chandler, creator of the Philip Marlowe stories in novels, short stories and film. For example, during Chandler's "Hollywood" period he worked with Billy Wilder on the film "Double Indemnity". The relationship was somewhat strained but what we learned helped us understand a bit more about the man. Perhaps an even more popular film of the era was "Strangers On A Train" by Alfred Hitchcock who also employed Chandler to work on his film. Hitchcock even drove all the way down to La Jolla to confer with Chandler even though Chandler hated him. But there is no mention of the Hitchcock conflict in the book (or even Hitchcock's name) Chandler would keep him waiting on purpose before admitting him to his home. Why did Chandler hate Hitchcock? Delving into this mystery by Ms. Freeman might tell us more about Chandler than depending upon sudden inspiration while sitting in her car getting "vibes" about the place and what happened. As a result one feels that she is skipping part of the story or is not completely honest about aspects of his life. But it just may be sloppy research. And the passages she writes! She tries to out-Chandler Chandler with Marlowe type phrases. Is she auditioning for a mystery writing job or what? I learned a great deal more about Chandler than I knew but I kept feeling that something was left out or missing; kind of like the student who undertakes a term paper too great in scope to possibly finish by the deadline so time becomes a problem and the project is turned in with details missing and overlooked. That's how I felt after reading this book. For example she told us that Chandler wrote on half-sheets of paper but never explained why. She even told us whose job it was to cut the paper up into half sheets but not why. (It was a writing discipline he practiced to relay all the details of a scene as quickly as possible in the shortest amount of time and space.) Oh, also there are a lot of photographs but no captions under the photographs to identify them. There is a photograph index in the back of the book so you have to constantly flip back and forth to make any sense out of them. Also there are glaring errors such as identifying Terry Lennox as a character from "The Big Sleep." He was a character from "The Long Goodbye" and Ms. Freeman should have known that. Maybe it was just an editor's error. I'll give her that but the chapters seem to meander on and on and I kept waiting for a point to be made. Chandler broke his stories up into short and understandable chapters. Ms. Freeman would have done us a favor if she did likewise. I enjoyed the book but would give this term paper a B- for lack of comprehensive research.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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