Studying Great Sentences: Hammett's Red Harvest

I came to face a hard truth when I first tried writing fiction. I mean, people always told me they liked my stuff, and I enjoyed writing that stuff. But actually writing well is a whole other proposition. I failed--a lot--before spinning around in my writing chair and seeking deeper knowledge. 

As part of that, I re-read favorite authors and acknowledged masters, studying how they strung together plot, chapters, moments, and even sentences. I flagged any passage that wowed me in some way, even if I didn't know why. After finishing a book, I went to my computer and typed out each flagged section. Each one, as if I let their shape and function roll around in my brain. 

One novel I self-studied was Dashiell Hammett's The Red Harvest (1929). No pressure, just pulling at one of the finest novels in the English language. You know, a literal prototype of the hardboiled genre. I wanted to understand Hammett's dead-on prose. 

Here are five passages I flagged that have a lot to teach.

#1: Clinical Description

She had a broad-shouldered, full-breasted, round-hipped body and big muscular legs.  The hand she gave me was soft, warm, strong.  Her face was the face of a girl of twenty-five already showing signs of wear.  Little lines crossed the corners of her big ripe mouth.  Fainter lines were beginning to make nests around her thick-lashed eyes.  They were large eyes, blue and a bit blood-shot.   Her coarse hair- brown- needed trimming and was parted crookedly.  One side of her upper lip had been rouged higher than the other.  Her dress was of a particularly unbecoming wine color, and it gaped here and there down one side, where she had neglected to snap the fasteners or they had popped open.   There was a run down the front of her left stocking. 

In 2025, many an editor would reach for the delete key if someone handed them a 130-word character description. Not so back in Hammett's day. He had more wiggle room and laced extended descriptions through the novel, all for intended effect. 

This is an epic description, and for good reason. This broad-shouldered woman is Dinah Brand, Poisonville's scuffed-up version of a femme fatale. Hammett takes his time to show Dinah--and show how the Op sees her. He assesses her methodically, directly, a parade of subject-plus-verb sentences, nothing inverted or introductory, nothing vague. He adds discerning grace notes after his eye lingers. Once he takes Dinah in as a whole, he moves downward from eye contact and lands on the run in her stockings. Nobody's perfect in Poisonville. In the spaces between his descriptors, we come to see her as a physical presence, a young woman neither beautiful nor plain but wearing down fast. 

#1a: Dinah Again

Her big ripe mouth was rouged evenly this evening, but her brown hair still needed trimming, was parted haphazardly, and there were spots down the front of her orange silk dress.

This is later on. Dinah and the Op have become acquainted, as they say, so no further epic portrait is required. The Op needs to see what is different tonight. In this case, maybe Dinah is putting more effort into her appearance. In context of the novel, this is an important shift and set-up for what is to come. Poisonville doesn't do happy endings.

The construction here geeks out a sentence nerd. Gone is the clinical march of sentences. This is a continuous and considered observation of Dinah as a whole. The sentence nerd fulcrum is the classic "but." The first conjunction pair allows her the lipstick...but. Returning to the hair regrounds her, and the spots on her dress are pure Dinah. But maybe this is Dinah really trying, or maybe she only tries so hard.

#2: Marvelous Understatement

One of the blond boys drove.  He knew what speed was.

This one is glorious, even funny if you want to read it that way. Hammett's occasional hardboiled understatement--and sometimes overstatement--spices up the narrative voice without making the Op verbose.

#3: Action Sequence

The chief's car got away first, off with a jump that hammered our teeth together.  We missed the garage door by half an inch, chased a couple of pedestrians diagonally across the sidewalk, bounced off the curb into the roadway, missed a truck as narrowly as we had missed the door, and dashed out King Street with our siren wide open.

Chaos. Hardboiled chaos. And again, the secret is that long second sentence, a 46-word marathon. The standard advice for action is to go choppy. Choppy, though, would kill the effect. They're in one hell of a hurry, such a hurry that they're veering all over the place. This mayhem is one single action ending in, finally, a beat of control.

#4: Drinkin'

When I came back she was mixing gin, vermouth and orange bitters in a quart shaker, not leaving a lot of space for them to move around in.

I'll leave the exercise in the perfect noir way. Drinkin'. The Op is back at Dinah's place, and in no uncertain terms and clever voice, we know what comes next. 

Bottoms up, y'all. And write strong in the new year!