THE BIG SLEEP (Excerpt)
by Raymond Chandler
We drove away from Las Olindas through a series of little dank beach towns with shack-like houses built down on the sand close to the rumble of the surf and larger houses built back on the slopes behind. A yellow window shone here and there, but most of the houses were dark. A smell of kelp came in off the water and lay on the fog. The tires sang on the moist concrete of the boulevard. The world was a wet emptiness.
We were close to Del Rey before she spoke to me for the first time since we left the drugstore. Her voice had a muffled sound, as if something was throbbing deep under it.
“Drive down by the Del Rey beach club. I want to look at the water.”
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The above photo and passage from Raymond Chandler‘s novel The Big Sleepappear in the superb photo collectionDaylight Noir byCatherine Corman, with a preface by Jonathan Lethem. A series of photos from the book — including the photo of the Del Ray Beach Club above — were featured in a review by Rollo Romig in The New Yorker (October 7, 2010).
Photo: Del Ray Beach Club by Catherine Corman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Find Daylight Noir by Catherine Corman at Amazon.com.
Silver Birch Press 