Lillian and Dash
“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
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.
Praise