Published in 1934, this is another by Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961). His last, actually, although he went on to write a couple of film scripts featuring the characters from this book. Earlier in the year I read The Maltese Falcon, and always intended to tackle a follow-up, so when Henry Eliot announced a read-along, it was an ideal opportunity.

These read-alongs are great. The leader provides support material, and your fellow readers provide their take on the story, and their reactions to it. It's all virtual, but you do get a sense of community.

The Thin Man features Nick Charles, who was a detective, isn't one any more, and is unwillingly dragged into a case while he's on holiday -- over the Christmas period of 1932-33 -- in New York. He's there with his heiress wife, Nora. And part of the charm of the book is the relationship between these two. Nick is your classic laconic wise-cracker. Likeable enough, but you feel you've met his type before.

Nora, on the other hand, is smart, unflappable, and amusing. Never small-minded; always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. Altogether a breath of fresh air, in fact. She's actually more proactive in her detecting than Nick is. He's a fairly passive central figure, reluctantly on board, and always squirming to jump off.

Nora is based on playwright Lillian Hellman (to whom the book is also dedicated). Hammett began a romantic relationship with her in 1931, which lasted, in an on-off kind of way, until his death. Hellman said he was the most interesting man she had ever met.

And she was the inspiration for The Thin Man: "'It was a happy day when I was given half the manuscript and told that I was Nora,' Hellman wrote. ‘It was nice to be Nora, married to Nick Charles, maybe one of the few marriages in modern literature where the man and the woman like each other and have a fine time together. But I was soon put back in place -- Hammett said I was also the silly girl in the book and the villainess. I don’t know if he was joking.'"

Hellman wrote a total of 11 plays, two of which became Hollywood films. But after Hammett's death, she focussed on her memoirs, which turned out to be very controversial. People accused her of making stuff up; there were legal battles; it was nasty...


Lillian Hellman in 1935 (aged 30)

Anyway, in the book, both Nick and Nora drink like fish, despite Prohibition. Last thing at night, before breakfast, with breakfast... (And breakfasts feature heavily in this book. Always a good thing. So there's reference to a "raw chopped beef sandwich with a lot of onion", kippers, chicken livers...)

All in all, there's plenty of atmosphere. The novel opens with Nick leaning against the bar of a speakeasy on 52nd Street (almost certainly the 21, where Hammett used to drink with William Faulkner). A lot of the action, however, takes place in the suite the couple are occupying in the Hotel Normandie. This was probably modelled on the Pierre, which opened in 1930, and is still going strong.


"A 1930s apartment in the Pierre -- a lot of the novel's action takes place on Nick and Nora's sofa..."

The plot is nothing if not zany. It hacks off in all directions, piling up leads and red herrings.

At its centre is an inventor, Clyde Wynant, who appears to have gone missing. He is not only "the thinnest man I've ever seen", according to Nick, but he is also connected to what must be one of literature's most dysfunctional families. His former wife, Mimi, is a violent, emotional woman whose skills in manipulation are surpassed only by those of her fantasist daughter, Dorothy. Mimi's current husband, the much younger Christian Jorgensen, turns out to have an alias and a dodgy connection with Clyde, as well as a reputation as a gigolo. And Mimi's son, Gilbert, is downright weird...

There are other memorable characters: The leeringly repulsive Harrison Quinn; the skillet-throwing, tough-talking Miriam; the bar owner and tough guy Studsy ("Nora thought Studsy was marvellous. 'Half his sentences I can't understand at all'")...

Gilbert is the one, by the by, whose interest in cannibalism triggers the strange verbatim inclusion of 2,000 words from Celebrated Criminal Cases of America, a real book by Thomas Duke (1910). There's lots of debate about whether this is a digressive aberration or a subtle bit of commentary on the nature of society. I would put my money on the latter, as the apparent distraction reminded me of the Flitcraft story in The Maltese Falcon, which critics similarly questioned, but the more perspicacious saw as a contemplative bone for readers to gnaw at.

Anyway, it's Mimi who finds the dead body of Wynant's secretary (and girlfriend). Wynant is immediately a suspect, of course, and news of him pops up tantalizingly throughout the novel, as though he's leading them all on a wild goose chase. And maybe he is...

As Eliot says, the plot is crazily complicated, but it's almost as though the plot's not the point. What counts is the terrific energy and vibrancy that the story exudes, the verve of the characters, and the sharpness of the writing.

Bursts of violence sometimes interrupt the cool, terse dialogue. In fact, a "ribbon of darkness" runs through the book, balancing the warmth of the Nick-and-Nora partnership. There are a lot of seriously messed-up people in this novel, and lots of indications of buried tragedies.


I quite like this cover, which conjures up some of the glam of the story

The dialogue is consistently enjoyable. Some random examples:

-- Nora asks Nick how he feels. "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober."
-- Nora: "Why don't you stay sober today?" Nick: "We didn't come to New York to stay sober." So she pours him a drink, and goes to order breakfast...
-- Guild on the travails of a cop: "I didn't get a single solitary wink of sleep last night. It's a hell of a life. I don't know why I stick at it. A fellow can get a piece of land and some wire fencing and a few head of silver fox and..."
-- Edge is an archaeologist, married to one Tip: "Nora had a theory that once when Edge opened an antique grave, Tip ran out of it."
-- Nick once actually refuses a drink... "Policemen's liquor" must be really rank...
-- Nora asks Nick if he still wants to leave New York. No. "Let's stick around awhile. This excitement has put us behind in our drinking."


When not Christmas-partying in New york, Nick and Nora live in San Fran

A final couple of observations:

Our reading group was entertained by the reluctance, even in modern editions, to reproduce the reference to an erection that the original text includes. I was slightly surprised to see this in a 1930s text, I have to say (mine being an old and free version), but I was more surprised still to learn it had generally been expunged. The context is the occasion when Nick has to physically restrain the completely batty Mimi. Afterwards, with her usual insouciance, Nora asks: "Tell me something, Nick. Tell me the truth: when you were wrestling with Mimi, didn't you have an erection?" He admits he had, "a little". Nora is unperturbed: "She laughed and got up from the floor. 'If you aren't a disgusting old lecher,' she said. 'Look, it's daylight.'" This blogger comments: "Although Hammett's publisher Knopf was able to make hay with the controversy generated by this naughty passage, even brazenly directing readers in a newspaper ad to the page where the exchange occurs, it was subsequently excised from later editions." And so it remains.

The other thing that's interesting is the self-effacing quality of the ending. The case concludes, but it's clear that much of what Nick figures out is supposition. Nora says she always thought detectives waited until they had every little detail fixed before laying out their argument. Nick counters that this approach gives the suspect "time to get to the farthest country that has no extradition treaty". He continues: "Murder doesn't round out anybody's life except the murdered's and sometimes the murderer's." To which Nora replies, "That may be... but it's all pretty unsatisfactory." As Eliot points out, this is a nice little jab at all the neat, buttoned-down crime novels, where everything is wrapped up tidily.


The US first edition. The Thin Man sold 32,000 hardcover copies in its first year (mysteries generally averaged 2,000...)

I think those early readers were on to a good thing. All in all, I found this an excellent read, largely, I think, because of the innovative nature of the Nick-and-Nora dynamic.