Mildred Pierce

Mildred Pierce by James Cain is an in-depth portrait of a woman, the rise and fall of her life and her emotional dependency on her coldblooded, greedy, manipulative daughter. Although Cain is well known for his Noir thrillers, this book is quite different being more of a novel of social observations.

Set during the years of the Great Depression this is a well crafted story peopled with excellent characters, some you love and some you hate. For me, Mildred was someone that I mostly pitied. No matter how well things were going in her life, her happiness rested solely with her daughter, Veda. As her marriage fails and new men enter her life and as she slowly builds up a good business from her humble beginnings as a waitress, all she can show more think about is how to please her demanding daughter. But Veda is impossible to fully please. She sees people as stepping stones to help her get where she wants to go, and she holds her mother responsible for everything that she sees as lacking in her life.

Mildred Pierce is a dark portrayal of human weakness and greed. Mildred is a strong but flawed woman whose aspirations are not for herself but rather for her children. Unfortunately her daughter is an empty vessel that no amount of caring or love will every fully satisfy. I found myself compelled by the characters and their story and also intrigued by the economic upheavals of 1930s California. show less

A strange book in teh best ways. Fascinating to see the source material for the movie and how the screenplay reshaped it. Is till think Monty was grossly miscast, but otherwise the screenplay's changes made it much better as a film than if it had stuck more closely, even though I like the book too. Much of the dialogue gets lifted right into the movie, which makes sense because the dialogue is one of the best parts. Moves along conflict, deepens characterization, and is intrinsically tied to setting. The scene where M drives home in the flood is wild and excellent. Veda's last con is spectacular. M's obession/weakness/fatal flaw is also mesmerizing--you can see her fall coming and can't look away. As the mom of a daughter, I have my own show more personal tie, but it's also so strange that I wasn't reading myself into it. Finally, M's business acumen (and the others') is really fun. Would like to read more Cain. There's something satisfying about reading a book that just churns along through some questionable twists (deadly pimple) and scenes (opera teacher) and you know it will right itself again eventually. show less

Young housewife Mildred separates from her husband Bert, forcing her to find way to support herself and her two young daughters. After some trial and error, she ends up starting her own business. Along the way, she also makes and loses friends and romantic partners.

One of those things that was really great about this book was on the surface it doesn't sound like it's about much of anything. It's a fairly simple domestic fiction, concerned with women's work and everyday life during the recovery from the Great Depression. A lot of time and detail is spent on describing Mildred's clothes, how much money it costs for dinner, and so forth, yet it's done in a way that doesn't bog down the writing at all. Every word seems necessary as Cain show more spins his story.

Mildred Pierce herself is an interesting character; she is not a "Mary Sue" as she definitely has flaws, but I like her on the whole and see her as both realistic and at times, relatable. Other characters are for the most part also realistic, although they vary in their likability. For instance, Mrs. Gessler is a real hoot; Monte, I despise. And, of course, there's Veda, Mildred's elder daughter who is a real snob and yet Mildred would do anything for her. She's a compelling force in Mildred's life and story.

Although as I mentioned above, Cain's writing is very succinct, it is not perfect. Writing from a woman's perspective resulted in a couple of anomalies here and there for Cain. For instance, he occasionally chalked some things up to being "feminine intuition" (those weren't the exact words, but essentially), which I feel like is something male writers put in female characters' mouths but I never actually hear women say. There were also a few times when he referred to one of Mildred's children as either "it" or "the child," which seemed much more cold and impersonal than the character would be. Given the time period of the book though, I let this stuff slide.

For the audiobook listerner, the reader (Christine Williams) was sort of "eh." She spoke very fast and breathless, which bothered me a lot in the beginning but I eventually got used to it. Some of her voices, like Mrs. Gessler, were great, while others, like Mr. Treviso, were awful. Of bigger issue was that she didn't have a large enough range of distinct voices; so for instance, Mildred and Bert sounded exactly the same and therefore it began a little more difficult to parse out dialogue when the two were engaged in a conversation. Audiobook issues aside, I quite enjoyed this book on the whole and would recommend it. show less

This is the saddest story of unrequited love I have ever read. This love is not romantic or erotic but maternal. A struggling divorced mother living in Glendale during the Depression, Mildred Pierce not only survives but thrives through hard work and determination, creating a restaurant empire. She spends her emotional and financial resources on her daughter Veda, who is selfish, manipulative, and ungrateful. She ends up once again remarried to her philandering husband, her livelihood gone, and her relationship with her daughter broken for good. She may or may not be at peace.

I thought this was one of the liveliest realistic novels that I've read. I couldn't detect any false notes or exaggerated actions, save perhaps at the end. A minor show more American classic. show less

Wow. This book was a surprise. It sat on my list of books "to read" for quite some time, so long that I couldn't even remember anymore how it got there. I suspect it was the 2011 remake starring Kate Winslett, which I refused to watch before I'd read the book, which I started a few years ago but put down out of lack of interest after only the first few pages. I finally revisited it and doggedly made my way this time beyond where I'd stopped before and am so glad I did.

From what I've read, it sounds like the original film on which it's based, is now a cult classic but veers dramatically from the book. There is no mysterious murder in the book itself. The 2011 remake, however, is very faithful to the story line.

The premise might not sound show more appealing on the surface, which is that a woman named Mildred Pearce (of course) finds herself in a financial bind as a result of the depression. With an unfaithful husband who seemingly couldn't be bothered to improve their circumstances, she decides to go it alone but without any marketable skills beyond her talents as a homemaker and cooking. That isn't a plot that inspires, but the book is really about much more. It is about a class system that in America at that time many people were forced to confront as families were thrown into circumstances that often dropped them from upper middle class to middle class to working class or even poverty. For some this transition was accepted with a pragmatic approach and did what had to be done without suffering significant sentimental regrets while others either refused to accept it and failed or begrudgingly but doggedly fought to retain their position or even beat the odds and improve their standing. Mildred Pearce fell into the latter category. She has a great deal of pride that she painfully must overcome by initially working as a waitress, a job she considers is beneath her. However, does it she does. Ultimately she is motivated most by her haughty eldest daughter, who refuses to compromise her fanciful notion that she belongs with the upper crust. I must say that I cannot recall having encountered a more contemptible fictional character than her daughter, who not only places unreasonable demands on her mother, but cruelly taunts her for taking on the roles that she must in order to maintain the lifestyle that she demands.

Mildred quickly thrives by learning enough at the restaurant working as a waitress that she becomes an entrepreneur and opens several successful restaurants of her own. Along the way she becomes romantically involved in someone who ironically cannot accept that his own privileged status in the upper class is no more and that he must either sink or swim to survive. He sinks, and Mildred supports him.

Mildred remains unreasonably devoted to a daughter who is nothing short of abusive so this is also story about the devotion that a mother feels for her offspring and the lengths that she will go to give her children a better life.

I fell in love with this book once I made it past the first few pages, and I recommend it to anyone interested in what life was like in America during the great depression. The author is splendid in the details in making you feel as if you're actually experiencing it yourself. I would also recommend it to those who enjoy books that tell a story about overcoming the odds. And, if you enjoy the book, I highly recommend afterwards watching the very good 2011 adaptation. show less

Not really a noir novel. Postman and Indemnity were, so critics and others label this as a hard-boiled noir. It's really more of a melodramatic and proto-feminist one. There's essentially nothing more sinister than Monte sponging off Mildred and Veda blackmailing the Forrester kid's parents for three quarters of the book. However, this might be Cain's finest moment as far as plot and writing quality goes. The film with Joan Crawford was also erroneously labelled noir; the director Curtiz and cinematographer Haller were not associated with noir and its bleak, cynical takes on people and German expressionist influences. Sure, they made some crime films, but lumping films and novels like this in with noir is just not correct.

Poor Mildred. After sending hubby on his way to his inamorata, she's left with no marketable skills to raise two girls with minimal to no financial help from their Dad. After trying to get a job that she wouldn't think of as degrading, out of desperation she "lowers" herself to be a waitress. With time and patience, she manages to pull herself up and out of this menial job and build up a restaraunt business of her own.

But a female version of Horatio Alger this isn't. Mildred's slavish (and eventually rather icky) devotion to her daughter, Veda, causes a series of mis-steps that bring the whole carefully-built-up scheme come crashing down. The denouement, which is nothing at all like the Crawford movie version, is a fascinating vignette show more of human resiliance.

The careful development of Veda, an astonishing picture of self-centeredness, makes this book a worthwhile read. show less