I had a very mixed reaction to this book. I liked Cain's big three very much. This one seems very different. Perhaps it's because he was still working on it when he died. I was intrigued with the story from page one but, the main character and narrator was immensely annoying. She seemed ver...
Well done story that paints a realistic portrayal of a woman's struggle for success during the depression era.This story gives me thoughts of a previous read novel Revolutionary Road by Yates which also was adapted into big screen well. They really are both of similar tones. A decline of the fami...
”Stealing a man’s wife, that’s nothing, but stealing his car, that’s larceny.” John Garfield and Lana Turner in the 1946 movie.Frank Chambers is a drifter, a man who, when life gets too heavy, catches the next boxcar out of town or puts his thumb out on the nearest highway. Being comfortable or ...
Τρίτο βιβλίο του Τζέιμς Κέιν που διαβάζω και με διαφορά είναι το πιο αδύναμο. Το κλασικό "Ο ταχυδρόμος χτυπά πάντα δυο φορές" δεν με ξετρέλανε αλλά σίγουρα μου άρεσε και αξίζει να μνημονεύεται και το επίσης κλασικό "Διπλό άλλοθι" μου φάνηκε τρομερό, από τα καλύτερα νουάρ μυθιστορήματα που έχω δια...
I love this hard-boiled, noir stuff.This book is from late in Cain's career and is set in the era when a girl was described by her measurements ... and Mandy, age 16, thoughtfully provides these right in the first sentence.Mandy (as is sometimes the case in Cain's novels) has a mother who is even...
Love, at first real, is made subservient to power. And the people that love are consumed by the greed, and then destroyed.But this is not a drama of epic style, in the prose of James M. Cain it all grows from a trivial setup in a second-rated city somewhere in the middle of America.Ben is a drive...
There’s a great scene in “The Bank Dick” where W.C. Fields reads a script to a dapper actor dressed in top hat and tails. “You win the game for the football team in the last thirty seconds. You throw passes, you kick field goals, you run touchdown after touchdown”. The actor is outraged and asks ...
One of the craziest books I've ever read. So crazy it deserves a spoilery synopsis. Spoilers to follow:Johnny is a down and out American singer in Mexico. Once he was a success in Europe, but he lost his voice and now he's broke. Also he's really bigoted. It's good to be prepared for that instead...
James M. Cain had a long and distinguished literary career (died 1977), but I never got around to reading anything but The Postman Always Rings Twice. In fact, I'm not sure I ever really read it, or just knew the title and saw a movie or something. I picked up The Root of His Evil out of curiosit...
SINFUL WOMAN. (1947). James M. Cain. **1/2.Cain is mostly remembered as a writer based on his books that were turned into films, but he did publish several shorter works – typically ignored by critics because they were issued in paperback format. It’s probably better that way. This short wor...
More great (and politically incorrect) James M. Cain:(SPOILERS)Meet Graham Kirby, age 30, real estate entrepreneur and local booster. He has been successful so far in life, and clearly has a plan for continuing to be so. He has moved on from tough beginnings and is now the breadwinner in his ext...