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The Long Embrace

Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved

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The Long Embrace

Written by: Judith Freeman
Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
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About this listen

Raymond Chandler was one of the most original and enduring crime novelists of the 20th century. Yet much of his pre-writing life, including his unconventional marriage, has remained shrouded in mystery. In this compelling, wholly original book, Judith Freeman sets out to solve the puzzle of who Chandler was and how he became the writer who would create in Philip Marlowe, an icon of American culture.

Freeman uncovers vestiges of the Los Angeles that was terrain and inspiration for Chandler's imagination, including the nearly two dozen apartments and houses the Chandlers moved into and out of over the course of two decades. She also uncovers the life of Cissy Pascal, the older, twice-divorced woman Chandler married in 1924, who would play an essential role in how he came to understand not only his female characters - and Marlowe's relation to them - but himself as well.

A revelation of a marriage that was a wellspring of need, illusion, and creativity, The Long Embrace provides us with a more complete picture of Raymond Chandler's life and art than any we have had before.

©2007 Judith Freeman (P)2008 Audible, Inc.
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What the critics say

"The Long Embrace may be the essential book on Raymond Chandler. Like his books, it offers a rational solution to a puzzle while at the same time retaining a sense of mystery." (The Chicago Tribune)
"A beautiful and original book....Freeman writes about L.A. with a tender precision and yearning that borders on the religious....Freeman's identification with her subject is so complete we feel we're there with Chandler too." (The Los Angeles Times)
"A compelling picture of present-day Los Angeles and a compelling dual portrait of Chandler and his wife....Ms. Freeman knows the territory as well as Marlowe himself....she feels the language and captures the mood. Like Cissy, when she crooks her finger, it's impossible not to follow." (The New York Times)

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