Overview

This exciting novel about Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, and Lillian Hellman, author of The Children's Hour, reintroduces their larger-than-life personalities and the vicissitudes of their affair that spanned three decades. Toperoff reimagines the highs and lows of a fast-living, hard-drinking literary couple and their individual passions, projects, and literary creations. Hammett and Hellman's relationship evolves during major artistic and political epochs-Hollywood's heyday, the New York literary scene, the Spanish Civil War, McCarthyism, and both world wars-and each movement is captured with subjectivity and credible insight. Populated with writers, drinkers, filmmakers, and revolutionaries, Lillian and Dash chronicles the unusual affair of two prominent and headstrong figures.

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9781470898168

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Reviews

Toperoff's speculative novel about the affair between writers Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett is thoroughly entertaining...The audio version is equally impressive, with narrators Mark Bramhall, Lorna Raver, and Bernadette Dunne complementing each other and enriching Toperoff's engaging dialogue. They succeed by bringing to life the words and personalities of two celebrities who were known almost as much for their personal lives as they were for their writing. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award. -- AudioFile This is a novel that reimagines their relationship...with a strong dose of Golden Age romanticism. -- Los Angeles Times I have been reading Sam Toperoff's fiction for decades. He is a wonderful writer, shamefully underappreciated...Fascinating and engrossing, one of those rare books that would help you through an airplane flight without insulting your intelligence. In a word, it's literature. It also happens to be dark and sexy and, I would think, ripe for the movies. -- Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Over the years, Toperoff has been a master at blending fact and fiction...and in this book his handling of the Hammett/Hellman relationship and the Hollywood of their time is exemplary and brilliant. He has a great ear for their speech, and Toperoff delivers the historical period with not only credibility, but insight as well. And of course it's a book about writers and writing, and thus the relationships between ego and talent, success and the lure of self-destruction. -- Stephen Dunn, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in poetry Toperoff captures time and place and most importantly two vital people. It is not easy to write about writers, but with energy and wit and skill, Toperoff brings Hellman and Hammett's talent and pain directly into the present. -- George Vecsey, former sports columnist, New York Times A canny exploration of the long affair between writers Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) and Lillian Hellman (1905-1984), which endured alcoholism, war, and McCarthyism...Toperoff locates the private passions in an intense, public, and ultimately tragic love story without indulging in glitz or melodrama. -- Kirkus Reviews

Toperoff's speculative novel about the affair between writers Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett is thoroughly entertaining...The audio version is equally impressive, with narrators Mark Bramhall, Lorna Raver, and Bernadette Dunne complementing each other and enriching Toperoff's engaging dialogue. They succeed by bringing to life the words and personalities of two celebrities who were known almost as much for their personal lives as they were for their writing. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award. -- AudioFile Toperoff captures time and place and most importantly two vital people. It is not easy to write about writers, but with energy and wit and skill, Toperoff brings Hellman and Hammett's talent and pain directly into the present. -- George Vecsey, former sports columnist, New York Times A canny exploration of the long affair between writers Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) and Lillian Hellman (1905-1984), which endured alcoholism, war, and McCarthyism...Toperoff locates the private passions in an intense, public, and ultimately tragic love story without indulging in glitz or melodrama. -- Kirkus Reviews This is a novel that reimagines their relationship...with a strong dose of Golden Age romanticism. -- Los Angeles Times I have been reading Sam Toperoff's fiction for decades. He is a wonderful writer, shamefully underappreciated...Fascinating and engrossing, one of those rare books that would help you through an airplane flight without insulting your intelligence. In a word, it's literature. It also happens to be dark and sexy and, I would think, ripe for the movies. -- Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Over the years, Toperoff has been a master at blending fact and fiction...and in this book his handling of the Hammett/Hellman relationship and the Hollywood of their time is exemplary and brilliant. He has a great ear for their speech, and Toperoff delivers the historical period with not only credibility, but insight as well. And of course it's a book about writers and writing, and thus the relationships between ego and talent, success and the lure of self-destruction. -- Stephen Dunn, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in poetry

Author Information

Sam Toperoff has authored a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including Jimmy Dean Prepares and Queen of Desire, and his stories and articles have appeared in Atlantic, Harper's, Granta, New York Times Magazine, Town & Country, and Sports Illustrated. He lives in France in a house he built. Mark Bramhall has won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, more than thirty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has repeatedly been named by AudioFile magazine and Publishers Weekly among their Best Voices of the Year. He is also an award-winning actor whose acting credits include off-Broadway, regional, and many Los Angeles venues as well as television, animation, and feature films. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. Lorna Raver, named one of AudioFile magazine's Best Voices of the Year, has received numerous Audie nominations and AudioFile Earphones Awards. An experienced stage actress, she has also guest-starred on many top television series and starred in director Sam Raimi's film Drag Me to Hell. Among her many Blackstone titles are The Age of Innocence, Up from Orchard Street, The Lodger, Selected Readings from the Portable Dorothy Parker, and Diamond Ruby. Bernadette Dunne is the winner of more than a dozen AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway.

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