A Mysterious Something in the Light: A New Biography
Tom Williams
- Using recently discovered letters, Tom sheds new light on Chandler's life in the 30s and gives a detailed account of what happened after he left the oil industry, how he came to write his first pulp stories and how he came to write The Big Sleep
- The first book that looks at Chandler's early life in any detail and shows how it affects his fiction.
- The first book to look at Chandler's poetry as well as his prose.
- Features interviews with Natasha Spender and the daughter of Jean Fracasse (Chandler's secretary at the end of his life).
What
we know of Raymond Chandler is shrouded in secrets and half-truths as
impenetrable and deceptive as anything in his magisterial novel, The Long Goodbye. Now, drawing on new
interviews, previously unpublished letters and archives on both sides of the
Atlantic, literary gumshoe Tom Williams casts light on this most mysterious of
writers.
The Raymond Chandler he reveals is a man troubled
by loneliness and desertion from an early age – experiences that fuelled his
writing as much as they scarred his life. Born in Chicago, in 1888, the
disappearance of his alcoholic father forced Chandler and his doting mother
back to Ireland, and eventually London. Later, intent on forging a new career
unconstrained by the petty mores of the British middle class, he returned to
the US – to corruption-ridden Los Angeles – where he met his one great love:
Cissy Pascal, a married woman 18 years his senior.
It was only during middle age, after worsening
alcoholism wrecked a lucrative career as an oilman, that Chandler seriously
turned to crime fiction, although his success was to prove bittersweet. An
obsessive attitude towards his craft, unrealised literary ambitions and a suicidal
turn after Cissy’s death combined to prevent him from recapturing the verve of
his earlier novels.
In this long-awaited new biography, the most
balanced and comprehensive yet written, Tom Williams shadows one of the
twentieth century’s true literary giants and considers how crime was raised to
the level of art.
TOM WILLIAMS was born in Newcastle in
1981 and was educated at University College London. He now lives in Kentish
Town and works in publishing. A Mysterious Something In The Light is his
first book. Follow him on twitter: @twilliams81
Raymond
Chandler: A Mysterious Something in the Light
by Tom Williams
is published by
Aurum Press on 26th July 2012 at £25
For further information on interviewing the author or featuring this
title, please contact
Liz Somers on
Tel: 020 7284 7181 or Email: liz.somers@aurumpress.co.uk
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