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Mildred Pierce

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I don't know quite where to start when writing a review of this book. Even though I had seen the movie and so knew more or less how the story would unfold (or thought I did), I still couldn't put the book down. The Washington Post said that "James M. Cain is the poet of the hard-boiled school of the American novel," and that compliment is well deserved. I was immediately drawn into the story and stayed completely absorbed until the last page. As others have mentioned, the book is much darker than the movie, and more complex as well. I went back and read the last chapter over a few times just to savor the ending again. The first time it was so startling that I couldn't quite believe what I had read. This is just one example of the power of Cain's writing. It's simply remarkable.

I never met a James M. Cain novel I didn't like and this one was no exception. The title is of the lead character who rises to great success during the Depression with a series of restaurants in early California. However, she has one big problem: the daughter she raised alone, Veda. Veda becomes a singer and also a master at deceiving and betraying her mother. Veda does not even consider her mother's spouse, her stepfather, off limits. This showcases the same intense Cain focus on a twisted relationship but this time it is on the mother-daughter relationship, arguably a more powerful one than the lover-lover one. This was made into a movie starring Joan Crawford, who won an Oscar playing Mildred. I thought this film version went too over the top though and veered into being maudlin and soap operaish. Stick with Cain's novel, the far more complex work.

Mildred Pierce is one of those 'tough as nails, heart of gold' mothers who should an inspiration to all women. She kicks out her dead-beat husband, works her tail off to keep food on the table and her daughters happy, and has the guts/brains to start her own successful business. So what's wrong (and why did James M. Cain bother to write about her)?

Unable to face reality, Mildred is the victim of her own blindness to her rotten eldest daughter's ways. Not only is her daughter unappreciative, she actually ridicules her mother as being some uncouth and ignorant embarassment. Mildred's toughness melts when confronting her monster daughter, much to her detriment. While a heartbreaking story overall, the ending is especially moving ... have your hankies ready.

Perhaps many folks reading this review has seen the famous film adaption (starring Joan Crawford) of Mildred Pierce. While the film generally carries the intent of James M. Cain's written word, there are several differences. Obviously Hollywood wanted to over-dramatize, or simply invent scenes. As much as I like the movie I enjoyed the book more; I found it to be more personal , intense and believable.

Bottom line: required reading by all mothers, strongly recommended to everyone else.

It's inevitable that most readers should go into this book with the excellent film version starring Joan Crawford in their minds. However, the two are quite different beasts, which is a credit to the strength and originality of both.

This is not a crime novel as the film implied, but a tough Depression era story of a woman determined to get by in a world of snobbery and class prejudices that even she herself cannot deny that she holds. When she becomes a single mother, Mildred is ashamed to have to take on a job as a waitress to keep her children in the relatively wealthy lifestyle to which they are accustomed. With nothing more than determination, she becomes the mistress of a restaurant empire and a wealthy businesswoman. But none of this is enough to endear her to her spitfire daughter Veda, whom she both dislikes and passionately admires.

It comes as a surprise that the Mildred of Cain's novel is more a Veronica Lake than a Crawford, a short-skirted coquette who uses her physical as well as mental assets to achieve what she needs. More complex is Mildred's relationship with Veda, and the character of Veda herself, a swaggering, overbearing, thoroughly nasty piece of work. If you thought Ann Blyth's Veda was unlikeable, meet this one! It's even more clear here that Mildred's motherly love has turned into unhealthy obsession. Unlike the film, the monster that is Veda is never really exorcised here.

It's the ending of the book which lets the rest down. The final quarter seems hasty - it smacks of an author who is getting a little tired of his characters and has run out of hoops for them to jump through. And while the book closes on a bleak sort of denouement, no real sense of conclusion or capitulation is gained. It should be noted that the ending is considerably different to that of the film, which, to my mind, ended things in a more satisfying matter - which admittedly had a classic crime story structure to its advantage.

Nevertheless, Cain's plain-spoken, tough-minded style and his talents as a storyteller make this a worthwhile read.

I'm a big fan of Hammett, Chandler, Ellory, and a few others who can take you inside the minds of people you'd never want to meet, yet might resemble a little too much. But as time goes by I'm beginning to lean towards Cain as the master of the noir genre, and this as his masterpiece.

As much as people love the Curtiz/Crawford film, its wellspring is overall a much finer, deeper work. Where the movie panders to its audience by including a murder that doesn't occur here (and needn't), Cain never once takes the easy route of administering easy moments of "justice" (read enough noir and that word will never seem the same...). He knows how people work, and it ain't very pretty most of the time, and he ain't afeared that we'll be unentertained when things go all too realistically.

Our heroine here is in most respects a very sympathetic lady, and we start pulling for her right out of the gate. But Cain doesn't let us off that easy. He also shows Mildred's various flaws, the fatal one being her obsessive love/worship/need for the respect of her daughter Veda. After a while any sane reader has to start disliking Mildred a bit for this myopia, and wondering how a woman so bright in other matters can be so blind regarding her daughter. Yet Cain paints her portrait so thoroughly, blemishes and all, that we must eventually forgive her this tragic blindness and thus suffer with her as she is mistreated ever more hideously by her demon progeny.

Veda is so ruthless, and ruthlessly portrayed, that it gets a bit much at times, and we begin to lust for her comeuppance. What makes Cain so intensely unforgiving, and accurate, is that she never gets it. It's a bit hard to take for those of us used to neat, clean endings and summarily dispensed justice, but it rings all too true, and that's the hallmark of this genre. Add to that Cain's sharp eye for self-serving action, and painfully sharp ear for the motives lurking beneath our every day banter, and you've got a book where no one is a hero, and everyone is all too human, as good sides mingle with bad sides until we're forced to look at ourselves a little more unflinchingly.

And that's a sign of great art.

Cain delivers the goods here in so many ways, and his feel for the mind of women is very rare among male writers, if the praise of so many women for his works is anything to go by. He surely has no fear of showing many men for the callow bums we can be, and also showing how it is that women can be taken in by the charm of many a cad. He also sees through the vanity of the female, and how it can easily become an Achilles heel. No one is innocent in Cain's worlds.

All that said, this isn't exactly what I'd call a "satisfying read". It's a little too accurate about homo sap in general, and can be unnerving in its harsh portrayal of our endless deceit and egotism. But if you like literature because you like to learn more about yourself, and us, and the weirdness that we hath wrought upon each other and this world, James M. Cain is waiting for you.

And Mildred Pierce is a dame you'll never forget.

James M. Cain's reputation as a master of the noir genre rests largely on his phenomenally grim 1934 story "The Postman Always Rings Twice," 1935's "Double Indemnity," and this 1941 classic "Mildred Pierce." No other noir writer's reputation-whether Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, or Cornell Woolrich-rests on only two or three stories. How is it possible to sustain a literary legacy based on two, maybe three stories that you could read in three single sittings? Think movies. You can thank Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler for Cain's enduring legacy. These two guys collaborated on the script for "Double Indemnity" the film, a film that has since become one of the classics of American cinema. And don't forget Joan Crawford won an Oscar for her work in the screen version of "Mildred Pierce." Too, if memory serves correctly, there are two film versions of "The Postman Always Rings Twice," one of them starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. If I were a writer, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic that my legacy rested on film versions of my stories. From what I've read of the noir masters, Cain isn't nearly as good of a storyteller as Chandler, Hammett, or Woolrich. He isn't as good as Jim Thompson or David Goodis either, for that matter. He's still good, though.

Fortunately, although it isn't as noir as "Double Indemnity" or "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Mildred Pierce" is a wonderful story embodying several key elements of the noir genre. The novel is the story of Mildred Pierce, a young, leggy housewife and mother in California trying to make the best of a bad situation during the Great Depression. Like millions of other Americans during those trying times, Mildred's financial situation falters when her husband Bert's unemployment threatens to cost the family their home. Since Bert is also cheating on his wife, Mildred eventually forces her man to permanently leave. This situation leaves our heroine caring for her two children, Veda and Moira, without a source of income. Thanks to a helpful neighbor mixed up in bootlegging, a Mrs. Gessler, Mildred obtains enough support until she finally lands employment as a waitress at a Los Angeles hash house. Pierce is a tough lady, full of pride and ideals about what a woman should do in life, but economic uncertainty forces her to make tough choices. Her no nonsense attitude, along with her abilities as a fine cook, soon allows the woman to build a small restaurant/pie shop. A few more years of hard work finds Mildred with three restaurants and a bursting bank account in a time when people still stand in bread lines. She's a success story.

Cain is not content to allow his readers to bask in the glow of Mildred's success. As tough of a woman as she is, as careful about business as she is, Mildred Pierce has two problems that threaten to permanently destroy her life. The first problem is Veda, Pierce's eldest daughter. This girl is your archetypical snob, a young lady so enamored of the finer things in life that she will stop at nothing to obtain social position and wealth. Mildred recognizes her daughter's failings, but insists on doting on her while showering the girl with expensive gifts. Despite all the attentions she receives, Veda loathes her mother. She considers the idea of Mildred working in a restaurant unconscionable, and constantly works behind the scenes to heap scorn upon her mother. The second problem involves men. Mildred Pierce cannot seem to find a good man, as she soon discovers after hooking up with a somewhat wealthy loafer and snob named Monty Beragon. It isn't too long before Veda and Monty hit it off to the everlasting detriment of Mildred. Although both depend on Pierce for money, they can't stand her seemingly lowly status and plebian manners. You can rest assured that events will soon reach a frightful denouement, one loaded with shattering emotional conflicts that wreck lives and destroy relationships.

"Mildred Pierce," in my opinion, is even better than Cain's noir novellas "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice." You won't find a crime like murder anywhere in the story, nothing requiring a crafty cover up or the presence of law enforcement officials. The book instead focuses on the unhealthy relationship between a mother and a daughter both proud and spoiled in their own ways. In many ways, this destructive relationship is worse than the illicit affairs of the protagonists in the previously mentioned two books: Mildred and Veda hurt each other innumerable times, and go on hurting each other until the bitter end whereas Cain's other memorable characters quickly reach a point of no return. There is no end to the emotional suffering of the characters in this story, although despite what other readers have thought the conclusion does hold out a glimmer of hope that Mildred will overcome her weaknesses and rebuild her shattered life.

Don't worry about the lack of a juicy crime, though, since other aspects of the story intrigue immensely. Mildred Pierce as a character is quite wonderful; you simply can't help but like the lady despite her flaws. Conversely, Veda as drawn by Cain is one of the great evil characters of literature. You'll gape at her soulless machinations, wondering how she gets away with such despicable behaviors and fervently hoping for a serious comeuppance. Too, it's nice to get a look at pre-World War II California, an atmosphere that Cain makes excellent use of throughout the story. I recommend heartily that all beginning Cain fans read "Mildred Pierce" alongside his two other masterworks. Sadly, it seems many of his readers tend to overlook this non-noir noir classic. I'm glad I didn't.

Required reading for all natives and denizens of Los Angeles. A dark romp thru our fair city. Accompany Mildred as she traverses LA's golden past- shop with her at Bullocks Wilshire, sweat bullets in the passenger seat as she navigates the Glendale freeway during the flood of 1938, pine for Pasadena, pray that her girls get into Marlborough, imagine singing at the Hollywood Bowl, and marvel as our heroine with the great gams builds an empire out of chicken and waffles - of all things! Mildred is no ordinary pie maker, she's Los Angeles incarnate. Joan Crawford may have won an Oscar for her portrayal in 1945, but Cain's 1941 novel more evenly balances Mildred's capacity for good against a city steeped in bad seeds. And while the film presents Mildred's daughter, Veda, as simply spoiled and shrill, Cain's study presents her as the fully fleshed out viper to which all true divas secretly aspire. Read it and weep. ~ Lili N. Barsha 5/2008

Probably more famous as a celebrated 1945 movie starring Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce (Keepcase)James Cain's novel "Mildred Pierce" (1941)is set in the gritty world of Depression-era Los Angeles in the 1930s. Cain is famous for the noir writing of his shorter and earlier novels, "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity", which also became classic films. Unlike these books, "Mildred Pierce" does not involve the murder of a husband by his wife and her lover, but it includes and expands upon the themes of sex, greed, and class of these two earlier books. It also portrays a world of pervasive philistinism. Unlike its predecessors, much of the focus of "Mildred Pierce" is on the mother-daughter relationship and upon ingratitude. Although related in the third person (unlike the confessional first-person narratives of Postman and Double Indemnity) in a clipped, hard-boiled tone, the novel is an introspective character study of its heroine.

When the book begins, Mildred and her husband Bert are living in a Glendale, California in a middle-class home that the couple can no longer afford. The marriage is breaking up as a result of Bert's affair with a woman named (Maggie) Mrs. Biederhoff, who appears to have been widdowed for about a year. Mildred is left with the job of raising two young daughters, Ray, 7 and Vera, 11, faced with a heavy mortgage, no job, and no skills other that her ability to bake pies. Mildred also has a lovely figure and gorgeous legs. She soon falls into a relationship with Wally, an unscrupulous lawyer and former business associate of her husband. But Mildred has ambitions. At first she proudly spurns domestic work, but she eventually takes a job as a waitress in a hash house, where customers grope her legs but where she determines to learn the business and make something of herself. Mildred uses what she learns at the hash house and her skills as a baker to open her own restaurant and, eventually, a chain of restaurants, which succeed aided by the repeal of Prohibition.

Besides showing Mildred's rise as a woman entrepreneur, Cain shows her sexual relationships with Wally and with a rich idler named Monty who loses his fortune during the Depression. Monty sponges off Mildred, and his interest in her is limited to sex and to her body. Mildred maintains through most of the book an ambiguous relationship with Bert, whom she divorces to secure the property she needs for her restaurant. Of the two daughters, Veda gets most of her mother's attention, for her apparent musical talent and her snobbery. Veda mocks her mother and spurns her love, which Mildred want to gain at all costs. Mid-way in the novel, after a torrid weekend affair between Monty and Mildred, the younger daughter Ray dies from an infection caught at seaside. Her death and funeral are portrayed in detail. Mildred redoubles her efforts with Veda and with Veda's piano lessons.

Among many other things, Cain portrays the harsh competitive side of the world of classical music when Veda learns from a reputed conductor and teacher, Treviso, in no uncertain terms that she has no talent for the piano. Shortly thereafter, however, Veda becomes a famous singer. In an astonishing scene between Treviso and Mildred, Treviso compares Veda to a poisonous coral snake with no thought of anything but herself. He advises Mildred to stay away from her daughter. This is advice that few mothers would take. The relationship between Mildred, Veda, Monty and Bert leads the novel to a crashing climax and ending.

The focus of the novel is on Mildred, but the novel portrays well many secondary characters. Broadly, the characters in Cain's world are driven by lust and money. There is also a strong component of class jealousy. The male characters, including Bert, Wally, Monty, and a young man named Sam, who is the victim of an extortionate scheme of Veda's are weak, lazy characters, ruled by their sex drives. Mildred is a much more complex character than any of the men. For all her faults and her ultimate downfall in the novel, Cain evokes sympathy for her. Some of the other women, including Mildred's friend Ida, from her hash house days, and her neighbor Mrs. Gessler, receive convincing-multi-faceted tough portrayals. Besides showing character, "Mildred Pierce" has a strong sense of place in showing Southern California in the 1930s. The book includes an extraordinary scene of a furious rainstorm which Mildred braves in her attempt to break up with Monty who is siphoning off her money and her ambitions.

"Mildred Pierce" is a dark portrayal of people and place. It succeeds through its unremitting emphasis of sex, greed and human weakness and through its picture of Mildred. Strong but flawed female characters are relatively rare in American literature, particularly of Cain's time. This is a book that deserves to be read and remembered.

Robin Friedman

There are only two words to describe this book: wow and bravo. Each of its 17 chapters is a compelling mini masterpiece of storytelling.

The title character is a young financially challenged mother who is forced to fend for herself in the decidedly unfriendly milieu of Depression era Los Angeles. After considerable struggle and plenty of hard work, Mildred eventually becomes a successful business woman.
But while Mildred is achieving economic independence, her daughter Veda, a precocious 11 year old at the novel's onset, matures into a hateful, greedy young adult who makes her mother's life a living hell.

Author James Cain has offered up a virtuoso performance in the writing of this wonderful novel. Chapter 1 is pure genius. It starts off with images of perfect domesticity; a husband doing yardwork and a wife decorating a cake. Then it suddenly spirals downward into the abyss of irretrievable family break-up. Each subsequent chapter is masterfully built on the one before to paint a vivid picture of Mildred's world as she wends her way through the obstacle course that is her life.

Mildred Pierce is a gripping, page turner of a novel. An enthusiastic 5 stars.

If you think that rotten, ungrateful children began in the 90's (or ended with King Lear's daughters), meet Vida Pierce, Mildred's daughter, an amoral young thing with a talent for singing and a disdain for anything low. Watch as Vida climbs to the top of the radio singing world and seduces her stepfather.

Excellent character study, and source for the great film which gave Joan Crawford her Oscar®