Hiney, Tom 1970-

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HINEY, Tom 1970-

PERSONAL: Born 1970.

ADDRESSES: Home—South Africa. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

CAREER: Biographer and journalist. Associated with Observer and Spectator, both London, England.

WRITINGS:

Raymond Chandler: A Biography, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor, with Frank MacShane) The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Non-Fiction, 1909-1959, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 2000.

On the Missionary Trail: A Journey through Polynesia, Asia, and Africa with the London Missionary Society, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 2000, published as On the Missionary Trail: The Classic Georgian Adventure of Two Englishmen, Sent on a Journey around the World, 1821-29, Chatto & Windus (London, England), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: In 1997 London-based journalist Tom Hiney published the first major biography of mystery writer Raymond Chandler in more than twenty years, benefiting from both the recent release of Chandler's archives by the university where they were kept and interviews with Chandler's friends late in his life.

Chandler (1888-1959), the creator of private eye Philip Marlowe, was one of the more colorful characters in twentieth-century American letters—"beyond eccentric," in a phrase quoted by a Publishers Weekly critic. Hiney traces the career of this unlikely writer, born in the American Midwest to an Irish mother and an alcoholic father who soon left the family. Taken to England after the divorce of his parents, Chandler returned to the United States at age twenty-four, and had a career as an oil executive before publishing his first novel, The Big Sleep, at age fifty. Becoming a well-paid Hollywood writer in the 1940s, Chandler fell into a decline in the 1950s, losing his interest in writing and drinking excessively. He died in 1959, five years after the death of his wife of many years.

Hiney's Raymond Chandler: A Biography was well received by most reviewers. A contributor to Publishers Weekly commented approvingly that "no rough edges have been filed off for this revealing, well-written biography." Hiney's prose, the same critic averred, makes for brisk reading that sometimes reminds one of Chandler's own atmospheric style. For British reviewer David Ludman, writing for the London Mail & Guardian Online, "Hineyistobe commended for his clear-eyed and quite startling account of Chandler the man, the lover, the wit and the artist." A different view was expressed by Library Journal contributor Michael Rogers, who found the biography short on literary analysis although "at its best when following Chandler's point-blank handling of his alcoholism." A Kirkus Reviews contributor felt that the book's tentative generalizations reveal Hiney's "inexperience as a biographer," while National Review critic Anthony Lejeune remarked that the biography contains "dull prose and sloppy grammar." Such opinions differ markedly from that of Lev Raphael, who wrote an admiring notice in the Detroit Free Press. Calling the biography "superb" and "full of surprising information," Raphael welcomed the conciseness of the 300-page book, which, he thought, "grabs you from the first sentence on, offering wonderful insights about Chandler and his writing, and it passes the ultimate test for a writer's biography." That test, in Raphael's view, is that the biography fills the reader with appreciation for the subject's art and life, and makes one want to return to the subject's own books. Malcolm Jones, Jr., writing in Newsweek, had further praise for the book, calling it a "discerning portrait of the creator of Philip Marlowe, the archetypal American private eye," while Entertainment Weekly contributor Megan Harlan dubbed it a "stark, sympathetic chronicle."

Hiney built on the work of long-time Chandler scholar Frank MacShane to edit a further Chandler title, The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Non-Fiction, 1909-1959. Robert McCrum, reviewing the book in the London Observer Online, felt the book is "basically for the fans," and went on to criticize the work as "sloppily annotated, disgracefully lacking in source material and absurdly overpriced." In spite of this, however, McCrum found that some of the pages "more than repay the cost of entry."

Turning to new subject matter, Hiney next chronicled the adventures of two little-known nineteenth-century missionaries in On the Missionary Trail: A Journey through Polynesia, Asia, and Africa with the London Missionary Society. The book follows the journeys of two representatives of the London Missionary Society, George Bennet and Daniel Tyerman, as they journeyed throughout the world to check on and bolster missionaries in the field. Their travels, from 1821 to 1829, covered 80,000 miles. Robert C. Jones, reviewing the title in Library Journal, found it a "fascinating chronicle [that] offers both insight into early nineteenth-century missionary activity and a thoughtful overview of a world on the brink of enormous change." Booklist's Bryce Christensen had further praise for the book, calling it "vivid and memorable," and a "saga [that] beckons us to a place and time very far removed from contemporary complacency." And a reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted that Hiney "nicely balances his own words with those of the two missionaries."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, September 1, 2000, Bryce Christensen, review of On the Missionary Trail: A Journey through Polynesia, Asia, and Africa with theLondon Missionary Society, p. 36; March 1, 2001, Connie Fletcher, review of The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Non-Fiction, 1909-1959, p. 1218.

Christian Century, May 17, 2000, Martin E. Marty, review of On the Missionary Trail, p. 583.

Entertainment Weekly, May 30, 1997, Megan Harlan, review of Raymond Chandler: A Biography, p. 66.

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, January, 2002, John Roxborogh, review of On the Missionary Trail, p. 41.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 1997, review of Raymond Chandler, pp. 521-522.

Library Journal, April 1, 1997, Michael Rogers, review of Raymond Chandler, p. 92; September 1, 2000, Robert C. Jones, review of On the Missionary Trail, p. 226.

Maclean's, July 1, 1997, Brian Bethune, review of Raymond Chandler, p. 111.

National Review, September 29, 1997, Anthony Lejeune, review of Raymond Chandler, p. 58.

Newsweek, July 14, 1997, Malcolm Jones, Jr., review of Raymond Chandler, p. 68.

Publishers Weekly, March 31, 1997, review of Raymond Chandler, p. 52; September 18, 2000, review of On the Missionary Trail, p. 97; March 12, 2001, review of The Raymond Chandler Papers, p. 71.