Chandler, Raymond. The long good-bye, London : Hamish Hamilton, 1973.

For most of his adult life he fought alcohol addiction and ill-health, but Raymond Chandler also produced some of the finest short stories and novels of American life in the twentieth century.  Along with Dashiell Hammett, Chandler reinvented the crime novel as literature, far beyond the realm of the crime caper or who-dunnit

Six of the novels feature the wisecracking, cynical private detective Phillip Marlowe, who was to be so famously portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in films such as The Big Sleep.

The Long Good-bye is seen as his finest novel and it exemplifies the Chandler touch; remarkably observant characterisation combined with humourous dialogue, complicated plot lines and an overriding sense of locale - how and where people lived. 

VIDEO: Bogart as Phillip Marlowe in THE BIG SLEEP       


         

                                         

Lambert, Gavin. The slide area: scenes of a Hollywood life, London : Serpent's Tail, 1997.

Gavin Lambert was ideally placed to delve into Hollywood's less public face, for he was a major force in the "dream factory",as a screen writer.  In his later years, Lambert moved into non-fiction and produced biographies such as Oh Cukor (a study of film director George Cukor) and film stars Norma Shearer and Natalie wood

He also wrote fiction - producing seven novels. The first of which was The Slide Area: Scenes of a Hollywood Life (1959), in fact more a collection of episodes than a novel.  It comprises 20 scenes of contemporary Los Angeles life in all manner of locations.  It is indeed a road map to fiction!

Lambert is unafraid of delving into the seedy side and his cast of characters feature the rejects of Hollywood, those who are in some way casualties of the fame game - or just life in general.  This work will to film students who seek inspiration in different forms of story-telling.  The language used is frank, original and often very funny.

Rechy, John. City of night, New York : Grove Press, 1963.

City of Night belongs to the literary genre known as the "underground" novel.  The word underground usually denotes an activity that is forbidden, or an aspect of life which polite society chooses not to face in broad daylight.  And so it is here, as John Rechy depicts the world of male hustlers and their "tricks" in the big urban sprawl of America.

The novel has acquired a legendary status and it demands to be read, although no doubt the shock value has diminished over the decades.

City of Night is best described as one man's odyssey: an unnamed  male prostitute travels from the East Coast to the West Coast, picking up clients.  The Los Angeles portion of the novel emphasises the lives of transvestites.  The locales are seedy - the language equally so.  It has been suggested that the book inspired director Gus Van Sant to write and film My Own Private Idaho.