Book Review: The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett (1934)

There's a character that you know better than almost any character in fiction. You know him so well because you've been seeing him in movies and TV shows ever since you were a kid. He usually lives in a big city. He's pretty much a working-class guy, but he's smarter and a bit classier than the typical working-class guy. He's good-looking, and he looks great in a suit, but in a cool, tough guy way. He's very familiar with the wrong side of the law -- and he's not above bending a few rules himself -- but he's motivated by a strict code of loyalty and honor. He doesn't necessarily like the cops (even if he is a cop) -- and they don't necessarily like him -- but in the end both the cops and the audience know he'll do the right thing. He doesn't like to shoot, but if he does shoot, he'll probably get his man. He's always a bit too cynical about things, and he often has bad luck with women, but he usually takes care of whatever bad guys need to be defeated by the end of the episode.

To anyone who grew up in modern American society, the descriptions in the above paragraph are so trite that it seems like this character has been around forever. But that's not true. He was invented -- and not all that long ago. Specifically, he grows out of American pulp fiction from the 1920's and 1930's -- and in particular, from the two greatest of all American crime writers: Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Hammett had the type of background that few writers have these days. Born in 1894, he dropped out of school at the age of 13 and held various jobs before spending seven years working as an operative for Pinkerton's Detective Agency. When he was in his early 30's, he took up writing -- and started writing stories about the "Continental Op" -- a Pinkerton-like detective. In the space of five years -- 1929 to 1934 -- he largely invented what we think of as the typical American crime story. All of the novels he wrote during this period -- Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), The Glass Key (1931), and The Thin Man (1934) -- are highly regarded, and The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man are absolute classics.

In 1931, Hammett started an affair with an extraordinarily awful person, the playwright Lillian Hellman. (Mary McCarthy once said of Hellman: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'") Hammett's own personal life was an absolute mess -- he suffered from bad health, he smoke and drank too much, and he was separated from his first wife. But thanks to the magic of his art, he took his and Hellman's romance -- which lasted until he died in 1961 -- and used it create one of the most beloved couples in all fiction: Nick and Nora Charles. Nick Charles is a former private detective who fits all of the tropes listed above. But he's 41 years old now, and has retired from the detective business to manage the affairs of his beautiful, wealthy, and glamorous 26-year-old wife, Nora. It's a shame more of the tough guys of American fiction don't get beautiful and wealthy wives, because a good wife can really liven things up.

In The Thin Man, Nick and Nora are in New York for Christmas, because they don't want to spend a lot of time hanging out with Nora's family in San Francisco (where they normally live). Nick is still well-known in New York for his prior detective career, and soon gets caught up in the mystery of the eccentric inventor Clyde Wynant, a very thin man who has apparently disappeared and who is suspected of murdering his former mistress. Nick prefers to spend his time drinking cocktails and staying out of trouble, but Nora is anxious to see him detect, and he eventually is forced to solve the case just to get everyone -- including Nora, the police, and Wynant's bizarre family -- to leave him alone.

The Thin Man has a very solid mystery plot, but most readers will remember it for the dialogue between Nick and Nora, such as this scene where Nick is complaining that he doesn't want to deal with the Wynant case:

"I haven't the time: I'm too busy trying to see that you don't lose any of the money I married you for." I kissed her. "Don't you think maybe a drink would help you to sleep?"

"No, thanks."

"Maybe it would if I took one."

William Powell and Myrna Loy played Nick and Nora in the movie version, and audiences liked it so much that they made five sequels -- and you can still buy all six movies on DVD today.

Sadly for the rest of us, Hammett never wrote a sequel to The Thin Man. In fact, he never wrote another novel for the rest of his life. My guess is that the drinking and the back-and-forth with Lillian Hellman -- which seems so charming and carefree in the novel -- was quite a bit more stressful in real life. Still, all of his books are now part of the Library of America, meaning that he has the place in our canon that he richly deserves.

This book is essential for anyone who likes detective stories, and is highly recommended for anyone who wonders where shows like Moonlighting come from.