The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and Selected Stories

The Postman Always Rings Twice (2013):

James M. Cain assaults the page with the rat-a-tat rhythm of a machine gun in The Postman Always Rings Twice, exposing the weakness and corruptibility of the human soul with each new burst.

After getting thrown off a hay truck, Frank Chambers drifts into a roadside diner owned by the Greek. Frank hires on at the joint after taking one look at the owner’s wife, Cora, a molten bundle of ambition and sex. The two indulge their passion, ripping and biting each other. They hatch a plan to kill the Greek, but it’s hard to decipher who’s playing more angles.

Hard-boiled is more than a genre for this novel; it’s more of a description, as the book is reduced into a small, pungent mouthful, careening at show more a break-neck pace, fueled by clipped prose and punchy dialog.

Cain is only interested in the dark side. Everyone is playing an angle. That Frank ends up ruined may indicate that the novel was meant as a cautionary or morality tale. On the other hand, Cain’s reality may have been that the whole world was pulsing toward a dark end, one story at a time.

I am more of a Spillane or Hammet fan – even in their darkness, there is still a spark.

Bottom Line: Noir at its darkest.
4 bones!!!!! show less

This is certainly a big collection, and I have to say that perhaps reading all of the stories in one shot was not the greatest idea. It all tends to kind of blur together at points. However, I shall discuss each portion separately, and try to be fair.

The Postman Always Rings Twice - still gets 4 stars because it is really very well written, tense and suspenseful, but I do feel it kind of lags after the initial trial. However, that last line packs way more of a punch than I recalled. A-1 writing there.

Double Indemnity - Still giving it 5 stars. Probably the best Cain story, in my opinion (and not just because it's about insurance). Lots of scheming, deception and quick wits. Somewhat different from the movie version, but it works.

Mildred show more Pierce - Going between 3 and 3.5 stars. I wish I'd known just how LONG this story is when I first started. Because I'm used to the more economical Postman and Indemnity, I was quite unprepared for this sprawling pretty-much-almost-novel. I did find the characterization very well done and was somewhat emotionally invested in the story, but my interest ebbed and flowed, and more than once I thought with some exasperation, "When is this story going to be over already? And is anybody going to get killed yet?" I think this one deserves a reread though, considering that it is so different from Postman and Indemnity.

Selected Stories - "Pastorale"'s narrative voice didn't do a whole lot for me, but "The Baby in the Icebox" was pretty interesting. (How could it not be, with a title like that?) Good plot in that one. Didn't really think much of "Dead Man", was somewhat more receptive to "Brush Fire", and quite frankly didn't see much of a point to "The Girl in the Storm". So a bit underwhelming on the short story front, perhaps because I was on a Cain burnout, especially with the marathon that is Mildred Pierce.

In short, if you get this collection, don't read it all at once! Savour a story at a time. Read it at home with a minimum of distractions. Soak in the atmosphere and the characterization. Then rent the movie of Double Indemnity, with Barbara Stanwyck. (You could also rent Postman with Lana Turner, and Mildred Pierce with Joan Crawford, but I haven't seen those so can't give an opinion on them.) show less

Postman and Double are variations on what is essentially the same story: Scummy man finds married couple, seduces wife, schemes to murder husband, husband dead, things get a bit pear shaped.

Mildred is longer than Postman and Double combined. Pretty good story, but could be based on the true life story of millions of women's lives. It's good that the story is longer, because Cain actually takes the time to develop and tell a story this time. However, so many women have actually lived this story in real life that there is nothing remarkable about it. Take the life of any single mother, and at least half of this story has happened to her. Because of this, the story is only rarely exciting or suspenseful, and could have been much shorter. show more In fact, the story can be summed up in under 100 words: Woman is married with two children, financial trouble, husband cheats, couple breaks up, single mother struggles to support and raise her kids, couple officially divorced, mother dates a few guys over the years, has some success in business, young daughter dies, other daughter is a pretentious b....., mother and daughter are estranged, reunite, mother is double crossed by b..... Pretentious daughter, the end.

BUT I'm glad I read Mildred. It was probably worth the read. Veda finally got a taste of what she deserved near the end, but only a taste if you ask me. I kinda hoped Mildred would have gone further.

The short stories: At least they're short. Cain, apparently, is fixated on hoboes and trains, cheating spouses and other lowlifes, boring "sex scenes", outdated racial stereotypes, and bad foreign dialects, and most of his writing contains little else. If you've read this book, you'll know what I mean. He attempts irony in Brushfire. Baby in the Icebox is pretty good if you can manage to read it in spite of the "colorful" language. Speaking of colorful language, Pastorale is, for me, unreadable. If Cain is going to write like that, I'm going to throw his book across the room and yell. Just sayin'. show less

Postman and Double are variations on what is essentially the same story: Scummy man finds married couple, seduces wife, schemes to murder husband, husband dead, things get a bit pear shaped.

Mildred is longer than Postman and Double combined. Pretty good story, but could be based on the true life story of millions of women's lives. It's good that the story is longer, because Cain actually takes the time to develop and tell a story this time. However, so many women have actually lived this story in real life that there is nothing remarkable about it. Take the life of any single mother, and at least half of this story has happened to her. Because of this, the story is only rarely exciting or suspenseful, and could have been much shorter. show more In fact, the story can be summed up in under 100 words: Woman is married with two children, financial trouble, husband cheats, couple breaks up, single mother struggles to support and raise her kids, couple officially divorced, mother dates a few guys over the years, has some success in business, young daughter dies, other daughter is a pretentious b....., mother and daughter are estranged, reunite, mother is double crossed by b..... Pretentious daughter, the end.

BUT I'm glad I read Mildred. It was probably worth the read. Veda finally got a taste of what she deserved near the end, but only a taste if you ask me. I kinda hoped Mildred would have gone further.

The short stories: At least they're short. Cain, apparently, is fixated on hoboes and trains, cheating spouses and other lowlifes, boring "sex scenes", outdated racial stereotypes, and bad foreign dialects, and most of his writing contains little else. If you've read this book, you'll know what I mean. He attempts irony in Brushfire. Baby in the Icebox is pretty good if you can manage to read it in spite of the "colorful" language. Speaking of colorful language, Pastorale is, for me, unreadable. If Cain is going to write like that, I'm going to throw his book across the room and yell. Just sayin'. show less

I purchased this collection of writings by James Cain by virtue of its inclusion in Everyman’s Library list of 100 essential books. Included are The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce and several short stories. The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity are actually novella length (100 pages), while Mildred Pierce is roughly 300 pages long.

I saw the movie version of The Postman Always Rings Twice, starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange many years ago, but was not familiar with the details of the story. It is an entertaining tale of murder for love and profit and the subsequent ramifications, both legal and emotional. It is well written and, at 100 pages, moves right along. Solid four star show more work.

Similarly, Double Indemnity also has as its subject murder, this time more related to insurance fraud, though there is certainly a romantic angle. The twists and turns in this story are more convoluted and intriguing. Again, at 100 pages there is no wasted prose and the action moves along quickly. This is an excellent novella. Five stars.

Mildred Pierce is more of a standard length novel, weighing in at about 300 pages. Following up on the much more tightly written novellas, it seemed to drag in places, but was a fine effort nonetheless. The title character is a Depression era housewife, whose husband has lost his job, his ability to support his family and apparently his interest in his wife. Mildred is left to raise her two young girls and does so impressively, by founding a successful chain of diners featuring her custom made pies. The real focus of the story is on Mildred’s relationship with her oldest daughter and the sacrifices and tribulations she faces in her never ending efforts to meet her daughter’s ever increasing expectations. Four stars.

There follows three or four short stories, a couple of which are rather good, though not exceptional. All in all, a good sampling on writing from one of the most renowned writers of the period. show less

"I'm not what you think I am, Frank. I want to work and be something, that's all. But you can't do it without love. Do you know that, Frank? Anyway, a woman can't. Well, I've made one mistake. And I've got to be a hell cat, just once, to fix it. But I'm not really a hell cat, Frank."

James M. Cain, author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, refused to be locked in to his reputation as a member of the “hard boiled school of crime fiction”, commenting "I belong to no school, hard-boiled or otherwise". In fact, Cain had wanted to be an opera singer, but didn’t have the voice for it. As a journalist for the Baltimore Sun and the New York World in the 1920’s, Cain was probably exposed to sensationalist stories similar to the story he show more tells in Postman, which is reputed to have been based on a real life case. Drifter Frank Chambers is the wrong man in the wrong place, when he walks into a small café in the middle of nowhere and collides with Cora Papadakis, the wife of the café’s owner. Frank takes a job there and sparks fly between them, and Cora decides the only way out of her loveless marriage is for the two of them to kill her husband Nick. Nearly caught on the first attempt, the second attempt is successful, but brings more consequences than either Frank or Cora imagined.

Cain’s main characters were “often self-destructive, or used by stronger women.” Postman is no exception to this. Although Frank has a rough edge to his character, Cora is truly the ‘hell cat’ she describes herself as. Their affair is passionate, anything but tender, and unfortunately Nick’s death does not bring them the happiness they seek. Both toy with the idea of killing each other and Cora even gives Frank a chance to do this. Accountability for crimes is a dish best served hot.

As I’m sure millions of other readers have done, I looked throughout the book for any mention of a postman ringing twice, or even once, and came up with nothing. I found this quote to explain the title’s origin on Wikipedia:

"With the "postman" being God, or Fate, the "delivery" meant for Frank was his own death as just retribution for murdering Nick. Frank had missed the first "ring" when he initially got away with that killing. However, the postman rang again, and this time the ring was heard."

The book was rather short and the story pretty straightforward. Like with any murder mystery, it was very suspenseful and I do believe everyone got what was coming to them in the end. Not high in the profundity department but enjoyable nonetheless. Anyone from the John Grisham school will be happy.

GRADE: C+
http://100booksin100weeks.blogspot.com show less

Loved the movies, wanted to try the book. The language, at times, was so out of date that I didn't get it. But on the whole I enjoyed the trilogy. I thought I'd like "Postman" best, but ended up really, really enjoying "Mildred Pierce" the best. I couldn't separate my thoughts from Joan Crawford's sholder pads, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the story.