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The final part in a series of eleven book reviews.

From the 1930s to the 1950s Raymond Chandler penned a stylish collection of short stories and novels within the crime fiction genre.

I’ve been rereading his work and writing reviews. This is where it ends. More details about the who, what and why are explained here in part one.

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Review Number: 16 (11 in Chandler series)
Review Date: 24 April 2016

Title: Playback
Author: Raymond Chandler
Country: United States
Publication Date: 1958
Genre: Crime Fiction

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“Let’s try again,” he said evenly. “From the beginning. Like as if we didn’t hate each other and were just trying to understand. Could we?”

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Writing a novel is hard as hell at the best of times. All you’ve got to do is sweat blood, create a plot and characters, and come up with about 50,000 words.

For Raymond Chandler in the late 1950s, life was not great. His wife (Cissy) had died in 1954 and he entered a world of clinical depression and alcohol. In 1955 he attempted suicide. More of a cry for help rather than a desire for death.

With that kind of bleak background in mind he did well to show discipline and write anything. His last novel, Playback, was reworked from a rejected screenplay and published in 1958.

It’s a case of last and least for this story. It’s nowhere near as good as the others. Lines like these also show Chandler was in a lonely place when writing it:

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Back on Yucca Avenue I stuck the Olds in the garage and poked at the mailbox. Nothing, as usual. I climbed the long flight of redwood steps and unlocked my door. Everything was the same. The room was stuffy and dull and impersonal as it always was. I opened a couple of windows and mixed a drink in the kitchen. I sat down on the couch and stared at the wall. Wherever I went, whatever I did, this was what I would come back to. A blank wall in a meaningless room in a meaningless house.

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All this gloomy talk makes me sound like some downbeat character from one of Chandler’s novels. Some petty criminal stuck in a cheap hotel and reflecting on where it all went wrong.

Playback is still quite a good story. It’s the slimmest of the novels but the plot and quotes would probably outshine most other pretenders to his crime fiction throne.

Chandler’s famous private detective, Philip Marlowe, has been asked to find a woman on the run. It will never be that simple. The lady has motivations for her great escape and Marlowe meets a charming cast of tough guys and the arrogant rich. The latter always incur Chandler’s wrath more than anyone else.

However, the book loses a lot of edge and energy as it’s not set in Los Angeles. We’ve been dragged out to the fictional and small coastal resort town of Esmeralda in California. My hunch is that it’s the wrong place to be. L.A. is where Marlowe belongs. He may not like it sometimes but at least more things happen in the big city.

Unlike Chandler’s six other novels there was no film adaptation. Says it all really. No playback for Playback.

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“One of the interesting things about police work is that you never hear the last of anything. There are always too many loose ends.”

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EPILOGUE

While Playback was the last of Chandler’s work, he left an unfinished novel The Poodle Springs Story (that title sucks) on his death in 1959 at the age of 70.

That book doesn’t start off well. Marlowe has got married and the fire and style seem to have disappeared from the story.

I think by the late 1950s Chandler’s world of hard-boiled crime fiction was beginning to go out of style. The 1960s were on their way and a new way of thinking would have left him firmly in the past.

Let’s not end on sour times. It was an enjoyable experience to read all his books again and review them. Writing the reviews made me appreciate the stories even more.

Chandler’s L.A. from the 1930s to 1950s was an interesting place to live and die. Great characters and memorable quotes. But Marlowe, our witty hero, was the heart and soul of it all.

Perhaps in another ten years I’ll read his books again. They’re that entertaining.

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All the related posts in reading order:

Raymond Chandler Quotes, Hard-Boiled & Soft-Centered, Pearls are a Nuisance, Trouble is My Business, Smart-Aleck Kill, Killer in the Rain, The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window, The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye.

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