Classic, before Bogart

Proudly and eloquently, Julie Rivett stands on the bridge between Dashiell Hammett and the rest of the world.

Hammett’s timeless detective story, “The Maltese Falcon,” is what Lynchburg will be reading this year as part of the nationwide Big Read project, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts. Every participating community chooses a communal book from a list of 75, and Rivett is visiting a number of those that picked Hammett.

“I’m very excited about the Big Read,” she said in a telephone conversation from Los Alamitos, Calif. “It’s hugely rewarding to help people see the book in the way that I see the book.”

Rivett will give a talk on her grandfather and his signature work at Lynchburg College’s Hall Campus Center on Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m.

“There’s a lot more to the ‘Maltese Falcon’ than Humphrey Bogart,” she said. “It really was a classic.”

Of course, she’s prejudiced. But then, in a way, she’s also the person best situated to evaluate Dashiell Hammett’s life and career with equal parts familiarity and objectivity.

Hammett died in 1961, and Rivett’s last contact with him came when she was 3 years old. Yet she grew up with stories about him from her mother, then edited more than 600 of his personal letters for a book.

To those who have seen the movie, released in 1941 and recycled endlessly ever since, the character of Sam Spade is most closely identified with Humphrey Bogart, his on-screen alter ego. As far as Rivett is concerned, however, there is more of Dashiell Hammett in Spade than anyone else.

“Oh, yes, you can really see it,” she said. “That’s one reason the book fascinates me so much.”

Unlike many crime writers, whose lives pale in comparison to those of their creations, Hammett was a fascinating character in his own right.

He worked for years as a private detective in San Francisco (grist for several of his novels) and served in two World Wars. He is also perhaps the only former member of the American Communist Party to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Blacklisted in the early 1950s for his former Communist activities, he was jailed for contempt of court after taking the Fifth Amendment at a Congressional hearing.

Throw in Hammett’s life-long struggle with tuberculosis and emphysema and alcohol, his much-publicized 30-year romance with playwright Lillian Hellman and his enigmatic personality, and it’s not surprising that the Maryland native seems to have stepped out of one of his books.

At the same time, however, Rivett grew up hearing of a man who loved children and animals, had a sly, dry sense of humor and fulfilled his obligations.

“One misconception that people have about my grandfather is that he abandoned his family,” she said. “That was never the case. He and my grandmother couldn’t live together for a long time because of his tuberculosis, but he always took care of his family monetarily.”

She even defends Sam Spade against charges of amorality from critics.

“He was a pragmatist,” she said. “He had his own moral code, and he stuck to it.”

Hammett wrote only five novels, the last of which was “The Thin Man.”

“That’s really where he made his money, from ‘The Thin Man,’” said Rivett. “At one point, he (Hammett) was getting $1,200 a week from book and movie money, which was a lot in the early ’50s.”

If you decide to plunge into the Big Read and make the acquaintance of one of the first “hard-boiled” detective characters, Rivett has a suggestion.

“Watch for the body language versus the dialogue,” she said. “My grandfather always knew when people were lying. It came from being a detective.”

"Classic, before Bogart" by Darrell Laurant, The News & Advance, January 24, 2010