All three books are written with an enduring view of the dark corners of the American psyche. Cain hammered high art out of the crude matter of betrayal, bloodshed, and perversity.
Three by Cain
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All three books are written with an enduring view of the dark corners of the American psyche. Cain hammered high art out of the crude matter of betrayal, bloodshed, and perversity.
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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great hard-boiled writing,
By Jake Barnes "docmoog" (Birmingham, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, The Butterfly (Paperback)
If you're a fan of Cain's prose these three short novels will satisfy. These are quite different from his more famous noir novels(Postman; Double Indemnity) but they still contain his unique brand of hard-boiled writing: minimalist sentences, crisp dialogue, and spare, economical description.
Serenade deals with an American opera singer (Cain trained as an opera singer before turning to journalism) who falls for a Mexican prostitute and brings her illegally back into the states where he begins a meteoric rise to fame, until something goes horribly wrong. Love's Lovely Counterfeit is a tale of small town crime. A solid thriller. The final novel, The Butterfly, is the most unique as it deals with the subject of incest in a West Virginia coal mining town. A nineteen year old girl shows up at a man's farm claiming to be his daughter, and takes things a little far with her sexual teasing. The plot takes several turns in its slim 90 pages, but I've never read another book quite like The Butterfly. The subject matter lends itself to Cain's spare, objective prose, because you need some distance from a topic like incest, and Cain hadles it well. The book also contains a short preface to The Butterfly, where the author talks a bit about his biography and his approach to writing. All three books are a solid 'B' grade, and fans of Cain, especially his writing style, should seek this book out.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good stuff,
By
This review is from: Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, The Butterfly (Paperback)
If you like Cain, after plowing through the big three - Postman, Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce - you should soon find your way to these classics. IMHO two of the three books here are just about first-rate. Serenade is terrific, and Butterfly is daring and powerful. Good stuff!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
James M Cain, Genius,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, The Butterfly (Paperback)
There is no such thing as a bad Cain book. One of my favorite authors and these stories are great stuff.
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