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Cain's last novel disappoints
By Michael Connelly |
September 23, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN you strike a match, the flame burns blue closest to the source of combustion. For most of his prolific career, James M. Cain had the blue flame burning in his explorations of greed, passion and murder. Novels like "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice" sizzled with it. And Hollywood always came calling. His work drew the best and brightest talents, and the results were classic. As recently as last year "Mildred Pierce" was produced for the second time in 60-plus years, in an Emmy-winning television run. Cain expertly mined the fine line between desire and lust and the consequences incurred by crossing it. And that skill is timeless, whether on the page or on-screen.
Now along comes the author's "lost" and last novel, "The Cocktail Waitress." While this story of a femme fatale with a gut-turning cosmic comeuppance at the end smolders and burns bright at times, it doesn't quite sustain the blue-hot source of human combustion found in the author's earlier work. It certainly entertains, but it also disappoints.
Cain died in 1977 at age 85, his immense popularity long on the wane. "The Cocktail Waitress" was the manuscript he labored over in his final years. Or perhaps "manuscripts" is a better description. The published novel was drawn together by the editor Charles Ardai from multiple manuscripts and notes found in places thousands of miles apart. Set in the early 1960s, the story follows the travails of a beautiful young mother, Joan Medford, who finds herself with nothing but the suspicions of police and family when her abusive husband dies in the crash of a borrowed car.
Joan is left with a young son to raise and an over-mortgaged house with no electricity or gas or adequate food in the kitchen. With a metaphoric sheen of desperation on her brow, Joan gets down to business.
She passes the child temporarily into the care of a conniving sister-in-law, who wants it to be a permanent arrangement, and takes the first job offer that comes her way as a suggestively clad cocktail waitress at a restaurant bar called the Garden of Roses.
The story is not coiled as tightly as Joan. It meanders across both human nature and geographic terrain. Plot seams occasionally show or are seen coming far in advance of the denouement.
Though narrated by Joan, the story is at times stilted and awkward, as if the author has lost the thread of his character's voice. But at other points the mundane aspects of Joan's relentless efforts to get the lights turned back on and her son back home, are real, endearing and fully absorbing.
This book is not vintage Cain, but it is Cain nevertheless, and that makes it a worthwhile read.
Now along comes the author's "lost" and last novel, "The Cocktail Waitress." While this story of a femme fatale with a gut-turning cosmic comeuppance at the end smolders and burns bright at times, it doesn't quite sustain the blue-hot source of human combustion found in the author's earlier work. It certainly entertains, but it also disappoints.
Cain died in 1977 at age 85, his immense popularity long on the wane. "The Cocktail Waitress" was the manuscript he labored over in his final years. Or perhaps "manuscripts" is a better description. The published novel was drawn together by the editor Charles Ardai from multiple manuscripts and notes found in places thousands of miles apart. Set in the early 1960s, the story follows the travails of a beautiful young mother, Joan Medford, who finds herself with nothing but the suspicions of police and family when her abusive husband dies in the crash of a borrowed car.
Joan is left with a young son to raise and an over-mortgaged house with no electricity or gas or adequate food in the kitchen. With a metaphoric sheen of desperation on her brow, Joan gets down to business.
She passes the child temporarily into the care of a conniving sister-in-law, who wants it to be a permanent arrangement, and takes the first job offer that comes her way as a suggestively clad cocktail waitress at a restaurant bar called the Garden of Roses.
The story is not coiled as tightly as Joan. It meanders across both human nature and geographic terrain. Plot seams occasionally show or are seen coming far in advance of the denouement.
Though narrated by Joan, the story is at times stilted and awkward, as if the author has lost the thread of his character's voice. But at other points the mundane aspects of Joan's relentless efforts to get the lights turned back on and her son back home, are real, endearing and fully absorbing.
This book is not vintage Cain, but it is Cain nevertheless, and that makes it a worthwhile read.
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