Speaking of The Maltese Falcon

And I was (six paragraphs down) on Monday. Here's an article from The Wall Street Journal celebrating Falcon on the 75th anniversary of its publication. I didn't know that it was held in such high regard by literary types. I guess we don't hear too much from literary types these days. One nice touch is a quote from Hammett's daughter, now 78. Hammett is often remembered personally as, in order of declining fortune, a drunk, a Stalinist, and the lover of Lillian Hellman. Hearing from the daughter lifts some of that collapsed weight:

"I suppose I first read the Falcon when maybe I was nine years old or something," says the 78-year-old Mrs. Marshall, author of the memoir "Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers" (2001). "I love it, and I've reread it over the years. But . . . I keep mixing up Spade's voice and the narrator's voice sometimes with my father's. I know this isn't kosher, this isn't how you're supposed to read books! But in a way it's kind of interesting, because so much of the dialogue--well, particularly Spade's--sounds like something my father might say in a similar situation. I was thinking about the bit where he tells Brigid that he's sending her over, and he hopes they won't hang her, she's got such a pretty little neck--but he'll always remember her! I can't quite picture my father being in that kind of circumstance, but if he were--that's what he'd say!"