Thursday, November 21 2024
Written by January 5, 2022

Ep 3 – Raymond Chandler & the Big Sleep. Special Guest: Richard Brewere

Podcasts Article

Episode 3 of the Paperback Show features a discussion of the novels of Raymond Chandler with bookseller and audio-book producer, Richard Brewer. We focus, in particular, on Chandler’s classic – The Big Sleep. It was a lengthy conversation so we released a condensed version of the show for our regular podcast. We are making the uncut version available here as part of our Show Notes (see below). There’s also a cover gallery which you can access in a separate post.

Ep 3 Show Notes

  • BBC interview with Raymond Chandler. You can download a written version of the interview (Ian Fleming is the interviewer) right here. ( see page 30)

His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939, featuring the detective Philip Marlowe, speaking in the first person. In 1950, Chandler described in a letter to his English publisher, Hamish Hamilton, why he began reading pulp magazines and later wrote for them: Wandering up and down the Pacific Coast in an automobile, I began to read pulp magazines, because they were cheap enough to throw away and because I never had at any time any taste for the kind of thing which is known as women’s magazines. This was in the great days of the Black Mask (if I may call them great days) and it struck me that some of the writing was pretty forceful and honest, even though it had its crude aspect. I decided that this might be a good way to try to learn to write fiction and get paid a small amount of money at the same time. I spent five months over an 18,000-word novelette and sold it for $180. After that, I never looked back, although I had a good many uneasy periods looking forward.

Richard Brewer (guest)