The Postman always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Knopf (1934), 188 pp.
Frank Chambers, a drifter in his mid-twenties, has been in and out of trouble for years. He wanders into a roadside lunchroom near Glendale, where he’s quickly offered work by Nick Papadakis, the owner of the run-down establishment. When Frank meets the cook, Nick’s hypersexy young wife Cora, he imagines job benefits that Nick never considered. Frank realizes the situation could lead to trouble, but he plunges ahead anyway.
This book well deserves its reputation as one of the classics of noir fiction. Particularly at the beginning, the story moves fast and pulls no punches. Frank sees Cora on p. 2 (of the 1978 reprint), has rough sex with her on p. 9, and is discussing Nick’s murder on p. 14. (No wonder the book was banned in Boston.) Cain’s use of the first-person narrator is unusually effective, providing a clear distinction between the story line and Frank’s rationalizations. The characters, if not exactly sympathetic, are at least comprehensible. The book’s not perfect, of course. The middle section is muddled by legalisms, and the ending tries too hard for irony. Even so, readers captivated by femmes fatales or seeking an introduction to Cain’s work will probably enjoy the book.
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