Long farewell, by Raymond Chandler

This novel is the most private among Raymond Chandler's novels, as he was writing it in the final days for his wife as she bid him a long farewell, and bid farewell to life with him. Her illness – and her passing later – had a profound effect on him, and perhaps was the reason for the novel's genuine and powerful feelings that stemmed entirely from the heart of the writer, directly reaching the heart of the reader. Haruki Murakami translated this novel into Japanese, influenced by Chandler's style, and saw it as exceptional: I read a long farewell more than five times without feeling a hint of boredom, and each time a detail that I had overlooked in the previous time was revealed to me. Number of pages: 451