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Amazon.com
Penzler Pick, April 2000: It is sometimes easy to trace a literary genre to its source, and James M. Cain's first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, is the noir novel that paved the way for all the noir fiction that followed. The famous film starring Lana Turner and John Garfield is notoriously dark, but the novel is even more full of despair and devoid of hope. It is a short book--little more than a novella--but its searing characterization and depiction of tawdry greed and lust is branded into every reader's memory.

Frank Chambers, a drifter, is dropped from the back of a truck at a rundown rural diner. When he spots Cora, the owner's wife, he instantly decides to stay. The sexy young woman, married to Nick, a violent and thuggish boor, is equally attracted to the younger man and sees him as her way out of her hopeless, boring life. They begin a clandestine affair and plot to kill Nick, beginning their own journey toward destruction.

Horace McCoy, David Goodis, Jim Thompson, and the other notable noir writers never achieved Cain's spare brilliance. Virtually all of his major works have been filmed, though several Hollywood studios refused to make the films, directors refused to be involved, and actors turned down roles because of their repugnance at the lack of morality inherent in all Cain's characters. Reading him may not be fit for a Sunday school class, but once you begin you will be unable to resist continuing, like picking at a painful scab or watching a tarantula inside a glass dome. --Otto Penzler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From AudioFile
Moody, sexy, dark, and criminal, this noir classic takes on new life as Stanley Tucci embodies drifter Frank Chambers and the rest of the sordid cast of Cain's famed novel. Cain's terse, muscular prose and gift for dialogue spring off the page as Tucci effortlessly personifies Chambers's narrative voice and amoral, if not immoral, life and times. Tucci chillingly, even blandly, communicates Chambers's casually brutal passions and schemes as he cons his way through a tragedy cast in 1930s' California. As one would expect, the story leads to a violent, degrading climax and not a few surprises. Preserve a place on your bookshelf for this audiobook--you'll want to listen to it more than once. D.J.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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