Product Description

These three classics from the master of the noir novel, along with five otherwise unavailable short stories, are electric with the taut narrative voice, the suspense, and the explosive violence and eroticism that were James M. Cain’s indelible hallmarks.

The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cain’s first novel—tried for obscenity in Boston, the inspiration for Camus’s The Stranger—is the fever-pitched tale of a drifter who stumbles into a job, into an obsessional passion, and into a murder. Double Indemnity—which followed Postman so quickly, Cain’s readers hardly had a chance to catch their breath—is a tersely narrated story of a blind, excessive love, duplicity, and, of course, murder. Mildred Pierce, a work of acute psychological observation and devastating emotional violence, is the tale of a woman with a taste for shiftless men and an unreasoned devotion to her monstrous daughter. All three novels were immortalized in classic Hollywood films. Also included here are five masterful stories—“Pastorale,” “The Baby in the Icebox,” “Dead Man,” “Brush Fire,” “The Girl in the Storm”—that have been out of print for decades.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39717 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-22
• Released on: 2003-07-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 624 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780375414381
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
“[James M. Cain is] a poet of the tabloid murder.” –Edmund Wilson

“Nobody has quite pulled it off the way Cain does, not Hemingway, and not even Raymond Chandler.” –Tom Wolfe

“Mr. Cain is a real writer who can construct and tell an exciting story with dazzling swiftness . . . [his] work has a fast rhythm that is art.” –Saturday Review of Literature

“Cain can get down to the primary impulses of greed and sex in fewer words than any writer we know of.” –New York Times

From the Inside Flap
These three classics from the master of the noir novel, along with five otherwise unavailable short stories, are electric with the taut narrative voice, the suspense, and the explosive violence and eroticism that were James M. Cain?s indelible hallmarks.

The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cain?s first novel?tried for obscenity in Boston, the inspiration for Camus?s The Stranger?is the fever-pitched tale of a drifter who stumbles into a job, into an obsessional passion, and into a murder. Double Indemnity?which followed Postman so quickly, Cain?s readers hardly had a chance to catch their breath?is a tersely narrated story of a blind, excessive love, duplicity, and, of course, murder. Mildred Pierce, a work of acute psychological observation and devastating emotional violence, is the tale of a woman with a taste for shiftless men and an unreasoned devotion to her monstrous daughter. All three novels were immortalized in classic Hollywood films. Also included here are five masterful stories??Pastorale,? ?The Baby in the Icebox,? ?Dead Man,? ?Brush Fire,? ?The Girl in the Storm??that have been out of print for decades.

About the Author
James Mallahan Cain (1892 - 1977) was a first-rate writer of American hard-boiled crime fiction. Born in Baltimore, the son of the president of Washington College, Cain began his career as a reporter, serving in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I and writing for The Cross of Lorraine, the newspaper of the 79th Division. He returned from the war to embark on a literay career that included a professorship at St. John's College in Annapolis and a stint at The New Yorker as managing editor before he went to Hollywood as a script writer. Cain's famous first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, was published in 1934 when he was forty-two, and became an instant sensation. It was tried for obscenity in Boston and was said by Albert Camus to have inspired his own book, The Stranger. The infamous novel was staged in 1936, and filmed in 1946 and 1981. The story of a young hobo who has an affair with a married woman and plots with her to murder her husband and collect his insurance, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a benchmark of classic crime fiction and film noir. Two of Cain's other novels, Mildred Pierce (1941) and Double Indemnity (1943), were also made into film noir classics. In 1974, James M. Cain was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Cain published eighteen books in all and was working on his autobiography at the time of his death.

Customer Reviews

Welcome to the Inferno
Although Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler are better known today, James M. Cain (1892-1977) is at least their equal--and many consider that he bested both in his finest novels, which combined sin-blacked characters, sordid plots, terse prose, and all the power of a blast furnace. This anthology collects all three of his landmark novels as well as several short stories, all of them showing Cain at the height of his powers.

Published in 1934, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE is the truly deadly story of a drifter who squirms his way into a job at a California truck stop--and then squirms his way into the bed of a sexy waitress. Trouble is, the waitress is married to the boss... and she doesn't like it, not one little bit. Dripping with lust, deception, and irony, POSTMAN is at once sickening and fascinating, a true powerhouse of a novel that festers long after the story has ended.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY, published in 1936, is equally hot--the tale of an insurance sales man who stays on the right side of the law until he is tempted by a psychopathic femme fatale who doesn't see anything wrong with picking up a few bucks on the unexpected death of her unwanted husband. MILDRED PIERCE, published in 1941, is equally memorable in its portrait of a driven housewife with a wayward husband who discovers that she will do absolutely anything for her vicious, serpentine daughter.

All three novels have been famously filmed, but while the film versions (most created during the 1940s) stand well on their own, the novels out distance them in nothing flat. Cora, begging Frank to bite her lips until they bleed; Phyllis with lipstick splashed across her mouth like a bleeding gash; sleek Monte and his viper-like stepdaughter Veda--all portraits of reckless abandon so powerful that they blister the page.

The volume also includes five hard-to-find Cain stories that are often as memorable as the best of his novels, most notably I think "The Baby in the Ice Box" and "Brush Fire." But whether it is novels or his shorter works, you simply can't go wrong when it comes to the best of James M. Cain. Welcome to the inferno. Brace yourself for the straight-down ride.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

The Master, Masterfully Done
If you haven't read James M Cain yet, you have to check him out.

This Everyman's Library edition is a great introduction. You get a lot of story in a tidy little hardback. Good paper, readable print, a volume that practically begs to be held and a nice wee ribbon for a bookmark. And the price is right, too.

Cain's prose is lean, tight and wickedly sharp. Like a back-alley razor-fight, you don't even feel the cut until after you see the blood. By then, it's too late.

Movies have been made of Cain's work. Quite a few, actually. He's stayed in print in Europe for the last fifty years. His work has cast a long shadow over many of our most popular noir authors today.

Way too good to miss.

"Noir at it's very best".
I haven't been able to put this down since it arrived two days ago. I had
read some of James Cain's stories a long time ago, but in my opinion he is
the best detective writer of all. The movies don't follow his stories in
all cases, but they are still wonderful to read. A great collection!