Raymond Chandler at 120

In honor of Raymond Chandler's 120th birthday yesterday, Carolyn Kellogg at Jacket Copy asked a slew of folks, including Tod Goldberg, the Mystery Bookstore's Bobby McCue, Denise Hamilton and yours truly, to send birthday greetings and gifts to the hardboiled legend:

Goldberg: "I like to give people presents they can use, so I'd probably give Chandler a shovel and a pick-axe, which would be useful in getting out of the grave and for beating to death all the people — including this one — who've ripped him off over the years. I suspect Chandler would also find it very odd to go into a Barnes & Noble and find that every mid-list crime novelist is being compared to him, and usually favorably, in their jacket copy. In fact, I don't know a single crime writer (including members of my family!) who've not been called Chandleresque, which makes me think most people haven't really read much Raymond Chandler."

Judith Freeman, author of THE LONG EMBRACE: RAYMOND CHANDLER AND THE WOMAN HE LOVED:  "A night with Cissy. And of course red roses."

There's more in the comments, too.

Comments

[Jeff Cohen]

I'd like to point out that, despite not being a bit like Chandler, I have never been called "Chandleresque." And I'm getting good and steamed about it.

[Libby Hellmann]

Over at the Outfit (www.theoutfitcollective.com) we celebrated Chandler's birthday early, with 9 essays about the man and his writing. Feel free to check out our Archives for April, 2008, starting April 12.