The Cocktail Waitress By James M. Cain

I just finished reading this book. It was written many years ago and Cain has been dead for many years but someone found this old manuscript and published it.

It is clearly not as good as his early novels like The Postman Aways Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce and Double Indemnity but being by James M. Cain it is worth reading.

James M. Cain like Patricia Highsmith often tells his stories from the point of view of the bad guy or the bad girl. In this case it is not clear whether the girl is good or bad.
I suppose the novel Crime And Punishment is like that also.

I was interested in this book also because it is set in Hyattsville, Maryland. He mentions a few real places like Prince Georges Plaza and a nightclub called The Wigwam.

Above is a nice picture of The Wigwam when it was a bar and restaurant. Looks like sometime
in the 1950s or 1960s.

 Click on the picture to enlarge it. It was on Route 301 in Waldorf, Maryland. Later it became a bakery and just recently it was demolished.

Cain lived the last  years of his life in Hyattsville Maryland.  He admitted it was a mistake to leave California which was the inspiration for his best work.

This book has a very unusual ending which I will not give away.
But it ends with the reader knowing something the character in the book does not know.
Something that will happen in the future. I have never read another novel with such an unusual twist at the
ending.

Read more about the book and James M. Cain here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/long-lost-james-m-cain-novel-published/2012/09/27/dd1046c4-074e-11e2-858a-5311df86ab04_story.html

James M. Cain And The Cocktail Waitress

New Book by Cain. Click to enlarge the photo.

James M. Cain. Click to enlarge.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/long-lost-james-m-cain-novel-published/2012/09/27/dd1046c4-074e-11e2-858a-5311df86ab04_story.html

Link above is to a good article on Cain.

Still from Double Indemnity. Fred McMurray is the sap. The patsy. The fool lusting after Barbara Stanwyck.
Click on the photo to enlarge it.

It was a real revelation reading Cain for the first time. When I picked up THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE and read the first sentence I could not put it down until I finished the book.
Cain knew how to grab you and not let you go.

He made a big mistake moving back to Maryland and Hyattsville, Maryland. Nobody is interested in fiction set in Hyattsville, Maryland no matter how good it is.

LA sells and Hollywood really sells.  There is not much there there in Hyattsville. Who cares what a waitress in Hyattsville does or does not do? Nobody that's who.

Cain wrote for the movies and his books read just like a movie. They are that direct and visual. The dialogue is as realistic as you can get. He was fascinated with the way people really speak. Working class people talking street talk.

People reading Cain for the first time don't know what to make of his style. Is he a first rate fiction writer or is he a pulp fiction writer or is he both?

What he is is very entertaining. A master of his craft. Just like Patricia Highsmith, and Raymond Chandler, and Hammett.

I wanted to go visit him in Hyattsville back in 1968 and 1969 and never got around to it. But from what I have learned of him and his life at that time it might have been a bad time to try to visit him with his health failing and his wife dying.
I suspect he was a quiet man who did not want to be bothered. He was a real writer. He lived his life on paper. And even though he thought his life was not interesting his books sure were.

I have other posts on the blog about James M. Cain. Check them out. Click on the label James M.Cain in the Labels box below.

James M. Cain Of Hyattsville, Maryland Covers Of His Hardback And Paperback Books And Biographical Information

That is James M. Cain in the photo above.
http://www.lib.umd.edu/RARE/Exhibits/HardBoiled/cain.html
Click on the above link for good information from the University Of Maryland about James M. Cain.
Below is a link to the wikipedia page on James M. Cain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_M_Cain
   And the link below is to the Paris Review Interview with James M. Cain. The Art of Fiction #69.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3474/the-art-of-fiction-no-69-james-m-cain