The Long Goodbye (novel)
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The Long Goodbye (ISBN 0-394-75768-8) is a 1953 novel by Raymond Chandler, centered on his famous detective Philip Marlowe. Feelings on it are mixed. While some consider it not on the level of The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, others rank it as the best of his work.[1] It is notable for using hard-boiled detective fiction as a vehicle for social criticism. It is also known for having autobiographical elements that relate to Chandler's life. In 1955, The Long Goodbye received the Edgar Award for Best Novel.
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[edit] Plot summary
The novel opens outside club called The Dancers with Marlowe meeting a drunk named Terry Lennox with scars on one side of his face. They forge an uneasy friendship over the next few months, until one night Lennox shows up at Marlowe's place, asking for a ride to the Tijuana airport. Marlowe agrees as long as Lennox doesn't tell him any details of why he's running.
Marlowe returns from the airport and ends up arrested on suspicion of murder, as Lennox's wife was found dead in her pool house. After three days of antagonizing his interrogators, Marlowe is released when Lennox is (allegedly) found dead of a suicide in Oaxaca with a full written confession by his side. Marlowe gets home to find a cryptic note from Lennox containing a "portrait of Madison" (a $5000 bill).
Marlowe gets a call from a New York publisher named Howard Spencer. One of his best writers, Roger Wade, has a drinking problem and has been missing for three days. Wade's wife, Eileen, also asks for Marlowe's help. Marlowe ends up finding Wade in a makeshift detox facility in a soon-to-be-abandoned ranch out in the desert. He takes his fee, but the Wades' stories don't match.
The Wades each try to convince Marlowe to stay at their house to keep Roger writing instead of drinking, and though he refuses, he ends up making further trips to the Wades' house at their behest. On one such trip, he finds Wade passed out in the grass with a cut on his head. Later, Roger tries half-heartedly to kill himself, but lets his wife take the gun from him. Mrs. Wade ends up in a sort of trance and attempts to seduce Marlowe, thinking he's a former lover of hers who died ten years earlier in World War II.
As all of this occurs, Marlowe is repeatedly threatened to lay off the Lennox case, first by a friend of Lennox's named Mendy Menendez, then by Lennox's father-in-law, the police, the Wades' servant (a Chileno named Candy), and Wade's wife. Marlowe also learns that Terry Lennox had previously lived as Paul Marston who was married previously and was probably from England.
Wade calls Marlowe again, asking him to come by to have lunch with him. Wade ends up drinking himself into a stupor, and this time succeeds in killing himself. Mrs. Wade arrives at the house shortly thereafter and accuses Marlowe of killing her husband. Candy initially tries to frame Marlowe, but his claims are undermined in an interrogation.
Marlowe gets a call from Spencer regarding Wade's death and he bullies Spencer into taking him to see Mrs. Wade. Once there, Marlowe grills her on the death of Terry Lennox's wife. Eileen first tries to blame it all on Roger, but Marlowe doesn't buy her story and argues that she killed both Mrs. Lennox and Roger Wade and that Paul Marston (Lennox) was actually her first husband, presumed killed in action off the coast of Norway or by the Gestapo. The next morning, Marlowe gets a call that Eileen Wade killed herself, leaving a confession in a note.
Marlowe still refuses to let the story lie. He's assaulted by Menendez, who ends up arrested in a setup arranged by a fellow hood (and erstwhile cop) named Randy Starr, who served with Menendez and Lennox/Marston during the war. Finally, Marlowe gets a visit from a Mexican man who claims to have been there when Lennox was killed in his hotel room. Marlowe listens to his story, and then says that he didn't buy it, because the Mexican man is none other than a post-cosmetic-surgery Terry Lennox.
[edit] Film adaptation
For Robert Altman's adaptation of the book, see The Long Goodbye (film)
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes
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The works of Raymond Chandler |
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| Novels: | The Big Sleep | Farewell, My Lovely | The High Window | The Lady in the Lake | The Little Sister | The Long Goodbye | Playback | Poodle Springs |
| Short story collections: | Fingerman and Other Stories | The Simple Art of Murder | Killer in the Rain |
| Other collections: | Raymond Chandler Speaking | Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler | Chandler Before Marlowe |
| Screenplays: | Double Indemnity | And Now Tomorrow | The Unseen | The Blue Dahlia | Strangers on a Train | Playback |
