A match made in hell alongside a California highway

books:

	• The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain Vintage, 1989 - 128 pages average customer review:based on 60 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An American Classic

The Postman Always rings Twice is an Americal classic--a great book by any standard. Cain's plot for the book is simple enough: an immoral hustler who lives by his wits gets in cahoots with an equally desperate and amibtious woman who is seeking to escape her loveless marriage.

Cain's book is remarkable for its suspensful account of a well laid out murder plan that succeeds but doesn't bring the two perpetrators much happiness. The book stands out for its blunt and realistic portrayal of vicious criminal behavior.

It's helpful to know that Cain was a screenwriter in Hollywood before he wrote the book. That I think is the reason for his sharp dialogues, some of which will stick with you forever! Cain's great dialgoue writing skills are a key factor in keepign the action tight throughout the many twists and turns of the book.
I haven't seen either of the movies based on this book, for one reason or another. Surprisingly, I've read this book atleast a half adozen times and the book has left an indelible impression on me. I can literally see the entire movie in my head everythime I think about it!

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A match made in hell alongside a California highway

Having recently read this for a second time (it's a short read for a dark evening), I've decided that Cain's novel is more devious, even more insidious than I remembered. A sense of futility and hopelessness is pervasive: Frank and Cora are doomed the moment they meet--he's a drifter, she's an unhappily married woman, both harbor vague ambitions and are fatally attracted to the other, and her husband is in the way. Or as she says, "I want to work and be something, that's all. But you can't do it without love."

In only one hundred pages, there are two crimes and two deaths, a headline-screaming trial, and a scorching lust-driven affair. It's one of the most tightly written crime novels ever published, and the ironic closing tragedy is one of the more memorably unique plot twists in the genre. That said, its episodic parts are somewhat disjointed and its police procedural and courtroom scenes are sketchily inauthentic. In sum, the novel is 99% attitude, and it has lasted the test of time for its style rather than its substance. I wouldn't place this among the best examples of noir, but it's surely high among the second rank.

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Cain Proably Influenced Kerouac [98]

This book essentially is Kerouac meets the three horsemen of mystery: Marlowe, Hammett and Spillane. Written with curt statements, little detail, and almost exclusively dialogue (could be a movie script), this book quickly outlines a thorough story in about 100 pages.

The protagonist, Frank Chambers, is basically another impulse driven, good-for-nothing, tiger on the road. He is the bad boy which good girls fall for. And the girl in this book is Iowa blond beauty queen, Cora Papadakis - whose surname comes from older husband Nick Papadakis. Frank's character reminds me immensely of Kerouac's "On the Road" hero - Dean Moriarity.

Cora hates herself and her life. After Nick employs Frank, she falls for the help. The femme fatale employs Frank to free her from her misery - which means murdering Nick. After botching the job the first time, and failing to run away while Nick sits in a hospital bed, Frank meets up with Cora for a second chance (hence the title).

The second attempt leads you through another botched caper which only leads to an ingenious and fruitful legal maneuver which climaxes with the insurance agent perjuriously testifying in order to save the company money. Money acquits evil.

But, if you sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas. A few escapades later, Frank and Cora mutually mistrust one another to the point where each believes the other will do to them what they did to poor Nick.

The ending is classic irony. And, that is what makes the book so ingratiatingly wonderful for film makers and readers. Love is conquered by the unknown. Isn't it usually "Love conquers all?" Then the unknown conquers all, or does it?

If you are looking for flowery prose, detailed description, or poignant passages of reflection - forget about it. This is Hemingwayesque, it is Marlowe-like or Hammett-influenced. This is about dialogue, slang, or street talk. This is classic fodder for film noire. This is a classic mystery novel.

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Chandler, Hammett Make Room, Please

Okay, so now that this reviewer has recently warmed you up with review of James M. Cain's lesser works, including the minor classic Double Indemnity it is time to bring up the big guns- The Postman Always Rings Twice (hereafter, Postman). I have reviewed elsewhere in this space both the movie versions of this novel- the original one with John Garfield and Lana Turner in black and white in the 1940's and the color version with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange in the 1980's. Both have there merits although the Nicholson/Lange version produced at a time when there was a more permissive atmosphere in portraying raw, primordial sexual passions is closer to the sense of Cain's novel.

Both films also take some license with the story line from the novel. That line, in summary, went something like this- Girl is unhappily married to older uncouth owner of a highway diner and gas station in sunny California of the 1930's. Boy an outlaw tramp, who also happens to be handy, very handy, with a wrench, comes down the road and hubby puts his to work in the station. Boy meets girl. Bang. Hubby is doomed but the newly formed couple, after a false start in clearing up that little matter, seemingly is ready to start a new life together once the murder rap is cleared up. Or are they?

After a fair exposition of Cain's works in this space, including a few short stories not reviewed, it is apparent that he was onto something about the way that novelist could look at crime and the vagaries of human passions. Most of his works, including Postman, center on the reactions of his characters to the way that their lusts (and it is mainly the distortions caused by their lusts that Cain wants to look at) lead them inevitably to crime, mainly the most heinous one murder. Moreover, as demonstrated here, no crime no matter how perfectly committed or maneuvered around, will go unpunished either as a result of the psychological reaction and revulsion against their crimes, no matter how deeply submerged, of the characters, as here, with Frank and Cora or by some quirk of fate. No police or gumshoes need apply to solve these crimes.

I have sometimes mentioned in reviewing Cain's work that the women tend to be femme fatales and that is true to the extent that these women have strong sexual identities, use that fact, and are, usually, to the extent they are fully developed by Cain stronger than the men. But then we are back to the old Adam and Eve story, aren't we? After all Eve was the one who took the chance. I would argue, as an aside here to the theme presented in Postman, that as conventional as Cora is in many ways, trying to make a go of the diner and trying to create a stable environment after the close call on the murder rap, that there is also some primitive Christian notion at work here. Something about the fates being played out a certain way and the gods best stay on the sidelines while they get worked out. But, hey, why don't you read this little gem and try to figure it out for yourselves.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Cain's first novel, banned in Boston, was an instant sensation and established him as a master of the mystery/suspense genre.

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