| The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain |
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| Book Reviews - Mystery | |
| Saturday, 30 June 2007 | |
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Rating: Excellent "They threw me off the hay truck about noon." I made a little goal for myself the other day, as part of a much larger list of goals: to read 25 of the Modern Library's 100 Greatest Fiction Books that I hadn't already read. James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice was on the list, and since I'd come acrcoss it previously while researching for other areas of this site and read some anecdotes about the origins of the title, I decided to give it a try. This novel is widely recognized as the true beginning of noir fiction. Frank Chambers is a drifter who blows into town one day and takes up a job working at an autolodge so he can romance the owner's wife, Cora. They start a passionate, often violent love affair, and then decide that the oblivious husband has to go. This is a short novel--only 128 pages--but it's one of the few that I wish had been longer, because I wanted to keep reading after it was over. Cain's story of two lovers on the path to ruin is well-told and rich in characterization, you can't help but be drawn in as the story moves to its inevitable conclusion. The only thing I found dissatisfying was the conclusion--at the very last it felt contrived. The rest of the plot was wonderful; it starts out simple and then ends up so delightfully tangled that the book is difficult to put down. And there's no filler--The Postman Always Rings Twice is tightly and efficiently written. Oddly, though, I can't find much else to say about Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice. I read it for the novelty, and having done so, I probably won't re-read it--in fact, I've already passed my copy on to someone else. But there's no denying it's an excellent story; I'm glad I read it and I definitely recommend reading it if you get the chance. |
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