Ninety-Nine Novels: The Long Good-bye by Raymond Chandler

In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess's interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess's list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.

In this episode, we’re donning our snap-brim fedoras and trench-coats to investigate The Long Good-bye by Raymond Chandler with our special guest biographer Tom Williams.

The Long Good-bye is Raymond Chandler’s sixth novel, and features the further adventures of his most famous creation, private detective Philip Marlowe. After being contacted by his friend, Terry Lennox, Marlowe finds himself embroiled in the aftermath of the murder of Lennox’s wife, Sylvia. Seemingly an open-and-shut case, the mystery surrounding her death grows, and Marlowe traverses Los Angeles in search of answers from a range of oddballs and criminals.

Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and grew up in Ireland and London. He worked as a civil servant and a journalist in London. In 1912 he returned to America. He introduced the world to Philip Marlowe in his 1939 novel The Big Sleep, and six further novels. He died in 1959.

Tom Williams is a biographer and writer. He was born in Newcastle and read English at University College in London. He has worked in publishing and publishing technology and, in 2012, wrote A Mysterious Something in the Light: A Biography of Raymond Chandler. He currently lives in Washington DC.

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BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

By Raymond Chandler:

The Big Sleep (1939)
Farewell My Lovely (1940)
Playback (1958)
Poodle Springs (with Robert B. Parker, 1989)

Philip Marlowe Novels:

The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black/John Banville (2014)
Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne (2018)
The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide (2022)

By others:

The Perry Mason Series by Erle Stanley Gardner (1933-73)
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (1939)
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen (1949)
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
Collected Poems by TS Elliot (1963)
Cocksure by Mordecai Richler (1968)
Bomber by Len Deighton (1970)
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)
The Inspector Rebus Series by Ian Rankin (1987-2022)
Black and Blue by Ian Rankin (1997)
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black/John Banville (2006)
The Slough House/Jackson Lamb Series by Mick Herron (2010-22)
The Cormoran Strike Series by Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling (2013-22)

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LINKS

Tom Williams on Twitter and Instagram: @twilliams81

[kevinrussell-jpom]

Well done, guys. I grew up in California a few hours from LA, but I had relatives that lived in and about the basin and could have appeared in Chandler's works.
I didn't read Chandler until a middle-aged adult, and the only crime fiction I'd read to that point was Conan Doyle.
For whatever reason I joined Folio books some time in the 80's, and on a whim I purchased their edition of Chandler's Marlowe novels. I read them all in order and within about a week.
Not knowing much of anything about Chandler criticism, I arrived at this one, The Long Goodbye, as my favorite. It is the longest, but it IS different. Chandler had a different motive and worked on a broader canvas here. There are actually THREE beautiful women in this one, and two end up dead. Chandler obviously had an odd relationship with women, which you have explored here. He was compelled to be attracted to them but did NOT really like them. Anyone holding to knightly attitudes toward women is presented either as fool or jaded cynic, and often a drunk. Lennox is a weak drunk.
His own dear Cissy left her first husband to cleave to Raymond. She was a soiled dove.
Perhaps that's why he also loved that Persian cat of his. He knew her true nature but loved her anyway.

[MylesNewman-cctx]

I’ve never been to LA (and probably never will) so the only LA I know is Chandler’s LA. And like the woman whose flaws showed the closer you got to her, I’ll keep my distance.