Current:Home > InvestRare Raymond Chandler poem is a tribute to his late wife, with a surprising twist -VisionFunds
Rare Raymond Chandler poem is a tribute to his late wife, with a surprising twist
View
Date:2025-04-14 16:34:57
NEW YORK (AP) — Near the end of 1954, the wife of Raymond Chandler died after a long battle with lung disease. The famed crime novelist fell into near-suicidal depression from which he never recovered. He drank heavily and died just five years later, at age 70.
Chandler completed no major books after the death of Cissy Pascal Chandler, but he did summon a brief, unpublished work, in a format he was not known for mastering: poetry. Written during the year following Cissy’s death, the 27-line “Requiem” is a grieving fatalist’s tribute to his longtime spouse, with opening lines that have the aura of a crime scene — and of a final glance at the victim.
There is a moment after death when the face is beautiful
When the soft, tired eyes are closed and the pain is over,
And the long, long innocence of love comes gently in
For a moment more, in quiet to hover.
Chandler’s poem appears in the winter edition of Strand Magazine, which has published rare pieces by William Faulkner, John Steinbeck and Tennessee Williams among others. Strand editor-in-chief Andrew Gulli says he found the poem in a shoe box at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library.
“I liked this departure from the wise cracking tales” of Chandler sleuth Philip Marlowe, Gulli says of “Requiem.”
Chandler, known for such classic novels as “The Long Goodbye” and “The Big Sleep,” had released poems early in his career that Charles Ardai, a crime writer and founder of the imprint Hard Case Crime, calls “juvenilia.” But Ardai praised “Requiem” as “heartfelt and lovely and observed as only a longtime spouse recently bereaved could.”
“This is a mature poem, a legitimate addition to Chandler’s body of work. I’m very glad it has been found,” Ardai says.
According to Tom Williams, whose Chandler biography “A Mysterious Something in the Light” came out in 2012, the author met Cissy Pascal some time before World War I, corresponded with her while he was serving overseas and married her in 1924. Chandler was in his mid-30s at the the time they wed, Cissy was nearly 20 years older.
Biographers have long speculated about their bond, whether the Chandlers’ age difference or their frequent changes of residence or their brief separation in the early 1930s. They did reconcile and remain together, in part so Chandler could care for his ailing wife.
“I think they needed one another,” Williams said. “He would never leave her and certainly felt that he owed her a duty of care when she was sick.”
“Requiem” includes a surprising twist. Resigned to the loss of his wife, to the end of the “long, wild dream,” Chandler consoles himself with the letters that recall “the long, long innocence” of their feelings for each other.
I hold them in my hand, tied with green ribbon
Neatly and firmly by the soft, strong fingers of love.
The letters will not die.
But the letters apparently did die; Chandler is believed to have destroyed them.
“We know that Chandler was a man who flirted with self destruction — he attempted suicide several times, including at least once after his wife’s death,” Ardai says. “Perhaps destroying the letters he so clearly cherished came out of the same self-destructive impulse. Or maybe he simply knew he was dying and had limited time left and felt that the letters were intensely private.”
Admirers forgot neither Chandler nor his wife. Because Chandler never got around to processing the necessary documents, Cissy did not have a formal burial; her remains were stored inside a mausoleum in San Diego, where the couple had lived in their latter years. But Chandler fan Loren Latker led an effort for a posthumous reunion. In 2011, a judge approved and Cissy was interred alongside her husband at San Diego’s Mount Hope Cemetery — on Valentine’s Day.
veryGood! (22861)
Related
- Paige Bueckers vs. Hannah Hidalgo highlights women's basketball games to watch
- Trump seeks new trial or reduced damages in E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse case
- Today’s Climate: Aug. 2, 2010
- New VA study finds Paxlovid may cut the risk of long COVID
- FACT FOCUS: Inspector general’s Jan. 6 report misrepresented as proof of FBI setup
- Los Angeles county DA's office quits Twitter due to vicious homophobic attacks not removed by social media platform
- Coastal Real Estate Worth Billions at Risk of Chronic Flooding as Sea Level Rises
- The Little Mermaid's Halle Bailey Makes a Stylish Splash With Liquid Gown
- Appeals court scraps Nasdaq boardroom diversity rules in latest DEI setback
- Her miscarriage left her bleeding profusely. An Ohio ER sent her home to wait
Ranking
- Jamie Foxx reps say actor was hit in face by a glass at birthday dinner, needed stitches
- Daily meditation may work as well as a popular drug to calm anxiety, study finds
- Why Andy Cohen Was Very Surprised by Kim Zolciak and Kroy Biermann's Divorce
- Hendra virus rarely spills from animals to us. Climate change makes it a bigger threat
- Sam Taylor
- Temptation Island Is Back With Big Twists: Meet the Season 5 Couples and Singles
- Tom Holland Reveals He’s Over One Year Sober
- Today’s Climate: August 10, 2010
Recommendation
In ‘Nickel Boys,’ striving for a new way to see
This week on Sunday Morning (June 11)
Amid vaccine shortages, Lebanon faces its first cholera outbreak in three decades
The Little Mermaid's Halle Bailey Makes a Stylish Splash With Liquid Gown
Whoopi Goldberg is delightfully vile as Miss Hannigan in ‘Annie’ stage return
Scarlett Johansson Recalls Being “Sad and Disappointed” in Disney’s Response to Her Lawsuit
Why Christine Quinn's Status With Chrishell Stause May Surprise You After Selling Sunset Feud
Fish Species Forecast to Migrate Hundreds of Miles Northward as U.S. Waters Warm