The Long Goodbye

The Long Good-bye is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1953, his sixth novel featuring the private investigator Philip Marlowe. Some critics consider it inferior to The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, but others rank it as the best of his work. Chandler, in a letter to a friend, called the novel "my best book". The novel is notable for using hard-boiled detective fiction as a vehicle for social criticism and for including autobiographical elements from Chandler's life. In 1955, the novel received the Edgar Award for Best Novel. It was later adapted as a 1973 film of the same name, updated to 1970s Los Angeles and starring Elliott Gould. Plot summary Outside of "the Dancers," a club in Los Angeles, Philip Marlowe meets Terry Lennox, a drunk with scars on one side of his face. They forge an uneasy friendship over the next few months, having drinks, specially gimlets, together at bars. In June, Lennox shows up late one night at Marlowe's home in "a great deal of trouble" and needing a ride to the airport across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. Marlowe agrees as long as Lennox does not tell him any details of why he is running. He later finds $5000 left to him by Terry. On his return to Los Angeles, Marlowe learns that Lennox's wife Sylvia was found dead; she had died before Lennox fled. Marlowe is arrested for aiding a suspected murderer after refusing to cooperate with investigators, who want him to confess he helped Lennox flee. After three days of antagonizing his interrogators, Marlowe is released, the police explaining that Lennox has been reported to have committed suicide in a small Mexican town with a written confession by his side. Marlowe gets home to find a cryptic letter from Lennox containing a "portrait of Madison" (a $5,000 bill).