Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [139]
"Goddam it, that's what I want to hear! Come on, we got each other, haven't we? Let's get stinko."
"Yes—let's get stinko."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JAMES M. CAIN (1892-1977) is recognized today as one of the masters of the hard-boiled school of American novels. Born in Baltimore, the son of the president of Washington College, he began his career as reporter on the Baltimore papers, served in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I and wrote the material for The Cross of Lorraine, the newspaper of the 79th Division. He returned to become professor of journalism at St. John's College in Annapolis and then worked for H.L. Mencken on The American Mercury. He later wrote editorials for Walter Lippman on the New York World and was for a short period managing editor of The New Yorker, before he went to Hollywood as a script writer. His first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, was published when he was forty-two and at once became a sensation. It was tried for obscenity in Boston, was said by Albert Camus to have inspired his own book, The Stranger, and is now a classic. Cain followed it the next year with Double Indemnity, leading Ross MacDonald to write years later, "Cain has won unfading laurels with a pair of native American masterpieces, Postman and Double Indemnity, back to back." Cain published eighteen books in all and was working on his autobiography at the time of his death.
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
ABOUT THE AUTHOR