Why did Chandler rename Santa Monica to Bay City? Was a particular reason ever stated?
Not stated, but given the number of bent cops, corrupt public officials, & etc, in his novels, I’d say to dodge the libel laws.
Libel isn’t an issue in a novel. By definition, a novel is fiction, not truth, and libel only applies to a falsehood being depicted as truth, not the other way around.
Authors – especially back when Chandler was writing – would sometimes rename towns so as not to impinge on the real world. See Batman, for instance (of about the same vintage) – Finger and Kane created Gotham City to stand in for New York (some early Batman comics actually had it set in New York).
I always assumed it was because that was how locals referred to Santa Monica at the time, since it is of course on the bay. I hadn’t ever seen anything to support that idea until reading your question made me do a Google search and I found this. It isn’t concrete proof but it does show how he may have gotten the idea.
That’s a really interesting link – thanks Kolak.
RealityChuck: I don’t think he renamed it for that reason since all of his other locales are named correctly and in some detail.
Probably for the same reason that Ed McBain named Manhattan as Isola in his 87th precinct mysteries. It allowed him to put in the details he wanted without having to worry that somebody would obsess over every line for factual accuracy.
I can’t find mention of this in a biography, but you can’t completely discount the fact that Chandler was living in Santa Monica when the original stories were being published. The cops there were so corrupt that he may have feared for his safety if they thought he was naming names.
You know how lots of fact-checking little Poindexters check those chalkboard formulae on NUMB3RS? Some writers would rather head that off at the pass.
Actually, claiming a work is a piece of fiction is not a defense for libel. cite.
Oh, please. Write anything about a gun in a mystery (novel, tv show, movie, anything) and watch the letters pile up from people whose veins you can see throbbing from the Moon. It’s been like that since way before Chandler was busy.
Write anything about a locality and see the masses line up with their pitchforks if you get a street corner wrong.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
Everybody hates when fiction steps on their little corner of reality. There is no corner of fiction and no corner of reality for which that doesn’t occur.
Ed McBain had made up names for all the boroughs of NYC. Drove me crazy trying to figure out which was the Bronx, Brooklyn, etc. New Jersey was always ‘the other state’, ‘the next state’, ‘the state across the bridge’ and so on.
I had to change a fictional name once.
In 1984 when I first pitched the idea of a weekly humor column set in a fictional New England town, I called it “The Report From Rockville.” The editor of one of the newspapers where it was to run asked me to change the name because there was an unincorporated Rock Village within the circulation area. “I don’t want them to think you’re writing about them,” she said.
So ever since, I’ve been writing about Potter’s Point. In fact, in the new Teemings you can read a Report From Potter’s Point.
Is that anything like “The Other Place” in old TV shows and movies?
It used to be customary for those in the U.S. Congress to refer to “the other body” rather than “the House” or “the Senate,” but that’s fallen by the wayside: Ocala Star-Banner - Google News Archive Search
I didn’t realize this – thanks.
On thinking about it more, it seems reasonable to rename only Santa Monica. Chandler had plenty of corrupt or lazy LA cops in his stories, but they were balanced with honest cops too.
However, Bay City is shown to be corrupt from top to bottom: the mayor, police chief, all they way down to the beat cops abuse their power. The honest cops are driven out of the force (e.g. Red and Riordan’s father). By renaming Santa Monica to Bay City it reinforces that it is a work of fiction and not a commentary on local politics. It makes it clear that the police chief is not the real police chief and likewise with the mayor.
Actually the article show it IS a defense for libel. All it says is someone can be sued. It doesn’t show they actually win anything.
In fact the above link just points out the lawsuits were allowed to procede but the plaintiffs didn’t win.
Basically you CAN but so what? You can sue for anything, doesn’t mean you’re gonna win.
I can see why a publisher wouldn’t want a book published that might lead to a lawsuit so they’d tell the author to change things to avoid the cost of defending it.