The Killers by Ernest Hemingway, 1927

This is my contribution for Friday’s Forgotten Books at Patti Abbott’s blog Pattinase.

“What are you going to kill Old Andreson for? What did he ever do to you?
“He never had a chance to do anything to us. He never even seen us.”
“And he’s only going to see us once,” Al said from the kitchen.

A classic story never dies. It lives on long after it is published and its writer has passed away from this world. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell (1924) and The Killers by Ernest Hemingway (1927) are just two examples of short stories that continue to enthral readers and viewers through early and modern adaptations retold via stories, novels, plays, films, and even comics. For instance, James Hadley Chase borrowed the basic premise of Richard Connell’s story for his 1969 novel The Vulture is a Patient Bird (1969), reviewed here. At the time it didn’t occur to me that I'd read it somewhere before.

The two short stories are so well written as to inspire the reader to try and write in a similar fashion. Those who write short stories know that writing one is not as easy as it seems. In Hemingway's case, you have to be a miser with words and generous with the narrative. Just as he was in his short story The Killers first published in Scribner’s magazine in March 1927 (see below) .

© www.library.sc.edu

The iconic writer is so annoyingly sparse with words that it’s a wonder there is a story at all. But that was his greatness. There is little description of the two mobsters, Al and Max, who walk into Henry’s lunchroom in Summit, a crime-infested suburb of Chicago, looking for a big Swede called Ole Andreson. They want to kill the former heavyweight prizefighter when he comes in for his daily supper. The hitmen are wearing derby hats, silk mufflers and gloves, and are hiding sawed-off shotguns under their tight overcoats. They look like twins and they're menacing in a quiet way.

While Al and Max wait for double-crosser Ole Andreson at the lunch counter, they order ham and eggs and bacon and eggs, and make fun of its owner, George, and the food on his menu, his black cook, Sam (who is referred to as “nigger”), and the only other diner, Nick Adams (frequently teased as “bright boy”). There is no description of George, Sam and Nick, or their thoughts and expressions, or their state of mind. But you know they're scared of what’s going to happen. If there is any description at all, it is to be found in the dialogue between the five characters, Ole Andreson, and his landlady.

A scene from the 1946 version of The Killers.

There is history behind this short story, just as there is history behind nearly every story written by Hemingway. Reading about it on the internet, I found that the writer lived in Chicago for a while. The city was under prohibition and organised crime was rampant. Summit was ruled by the mob. Those were the days of Al Capone. And a real boxer called Andre Anderson was killed by real gangsters, which formed the basis for this story. While Hemingway had intimate knowledge of gangland crime, he conceded that he left out most of it: “That story probably had more left out of it than anything I ever wrote. I left out all Chicago, which is hard to do in 2,951 words,” he has been quoted as saying.

Prohibition probably got to Hemingway, a heavy drinker, more than the gang wars. He sort of ridicules it in The Killers.

Women protest in Chicago.

“Got anything to drink?” Al asked.
“Silver beer, Bevo, ginger ale,” George said.
“I mean you got anything to drink?”
“Just those I said.”
“This is a hot town,” said the other. “What do they call it?”
“Summit.”

Hemingway was in his late twenties when he wrote the story and I'm not sure if he was already drinking a lot at the time.

Final word
As you read The Killers you'll mentally play it out on a black-and-white cinema screen. It's that kind of a story, fit for a low-budget noir film.

In fact, there are two full-length movies, made in 1946 (directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, and Edmond O'Brien) and in 1964 (directed by Don Siegel and starring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, and Ronald Reagan). The 1946 version had Charles McGraw as Al and William Conrad as Max. Besides, there are at least four short films including a student film in 1956 made by Andrei Tarkovsky and others. Having never seen any I don't know how true the films are to the short story.

It’s a real talent to be able to narrate almost an entire story as a conversational piece and still retain all of the suspense intact. Ernest Hemingway was a past master at this storytelling.