‘Remembrance, alas, is a tricky business’: Memory and biography in the established account of Raymond Chandler’s experience of the First World War

Abstract

This article re-examines the First World War experience of renowned American crime fiction author Raymond Chandler in order to demonstrate that the established biographical account masks an experience more traumatic than previously acknowledged. Like Carlos Baker’s version of Ernest Hemingway’s wartime experience, Frank MacShane’s original biographical account relies heavily on small sections of Chandler’s own correspondence that are taken out of context. Later biographies have reproduced this vague and ambiguous account without much further investigation, which has permitted various theories about Chandler’s work to develop, most notably that his protagonist, the detective Philip Marlowe, is a knight errant. This article utilizes primary documents, including Chandler’s military file and the War Diaries of his battalion, to highlight discrepancies in existing biographical narratives, and unveils an account that is significantly different from that of his biographers. By understanding the true traumatic nature of Chandler’s experiences on the French front line, we are presented with a fresh and original perspective through which to reconsider his work and an understanding of how Chandler’s war experience helped establish the traditional archetype of detective fiction.