The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles

by Kim Cooper, Paul Rogers (Illustrator), Herb Lester Associates (Editor)

Few writers are as inextricably linked with a city as Raymond Chandler and Los Angeles. The neon-lit streets, mobbed-up joints and seedy rooming houses portrayed in his fiction were real places, familiar to Angelenos of the time, and in some cases recognisable today.

This is a guide to the world of Raymond Chandler and his noble alter-ego, the private detective Philip Marlowe. It mixes locations from the books, the films and Chandler's personal life. There's the crummy dive where Moose Malloy went looking for Velma; the actual lounge where Marlowe and Terry Lennox ordered gimlets; the top-floor suite where oil executive Chandler got his priceless education in how a dirty, sun-drenched city really operated. This is the Los Angeles that Raymond Chandler carried in his heart. And now, you can too.

Genres: Travel

1 pages, Map

First published October 1, 2014

About the author

Kim Cooper is the creator of 1947project, the crime-a-day time travel blog that spawned Esotouric's popular crime bus tours, including Pasadena Confidential, the Real Black Dahlia and Weird West Adams. Her collaborative L.A. history blogs include  On Bunker Hill  and In SRO Land. With husband Richard Schave, Kim curates the Salons of LAVA - The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. When the third generation Angeleno isn't combing old newspapers for forgotten scandals, she is a passionate advocate for historic preservation of signage, vernacular architecture and writer's homes. Kim was for many years the editrix of  Scram,  a journal of unpopular culture. Her books include Fall in Love For Life, Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, Lost in the Grooves and an oral history of the cult band Neutral Milk Hotel. Her debut literary map is The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles: A Guide to the Usual and Unusual, illustrated by Paul Rogers. The Kept Girl is her first novel.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent little companion to a read of Chandler. My only complaint, perhaps unreasonable, is that the text describing the locations is on the reverse of the map, so you need 2 copies if you want to put one on the wall.

[Denise Link · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a gift the Christmas Jon moved to LA, and it inspired us to buy and read aloud every Raymond Chandler book on the map.