Cain X 3
Cain X 3 is a collection of three previously published novels by James M. Cain, reissued in 1969 by Alfred A. Knopf, with an introduction by Tom Wolfe.[1]
Cain’s literary oeuvre had drifted into obscurity by the late 1960s, and as a novelist he was at his nadir. Then renewed interest in the hardboiled fiction of the 1930s by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler drew attention to Cain’s contributions to the genre.[2]
Alfred A. Knopf publishers responded by offering this anthology of three of Cain’s most successful novels, Cain X 3: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), Double Indemnity (1936), and Mildred Pierce (1941). Enthusiasm for Cain’s early work persisted into the 1970s and 1980s.[3]
Critical Assessment
Literary critic Tom Wolfe’s fulsome praise for Cain in a 1962 review of author Norman Mailer‘s An American Dream (1965) prompted Knopf to include a laudatory introduction to Cain X 3 by Wolfe.[4][5] Cain X 3 garnered effusive praise from the Time, The Nation, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis Tribune and the Village Voice.[6]
Footnotes
Sources
- Hoopes, Roy. 1982. Cain. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. New York. ISBN 0-03-049331-5
- Skenazy, Paul. 1989. James M. Cain. Continuum Publishing Company. New York. ISBN 0-8044-2821-2
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- t
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- The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
- Serenade (1938)
- Mildred Pierce (1941)
- Double Indemnity (1943)
- Past All Dishonor (1946)
- The Butterfly (1947)
- Sinful Woman (1947)
- The Moth (1948)
- Jealous Woman (1950)
- The Root of His Evil (1951)
- Galatea (1951)
- Mignon (1962)
- The Magician's Wife (1965)
- Rainbow's End (1975)
- The Institute (1976)
- Cloud Nine (1984)
- The Enchanted Isle (1985)
- The Cocktail Waitress (2012)
- The Embezzler (1940)
- Love's Lovely Counterfeit (1942)
- "Pastorale" (1927)
- "The Taking of Montfaucon" (1929)
- "The Baby in the Icebox" (1932)
- "Dead Man" (1936)
- "The Birthday Party" (1936)
- "Brush Fire" (1936)
- "Coal Black" (1937)
- "The Girl in the Storm" (1940)
- "Money and the Woman" (1940)
- "Joy Ride to Glory"
- Our Government (1930)
- Three of a Kind (1943)
- Cain X 3 (1969)
- The Baby in the Icebox and Other Short Fiction (1981)
- Career in C Major and Other Fiction (1986)
- Crashing the Gates (1926)
- The Postman Always Rings Twice (1936)
- 7-11 (1937)
- "Paradise" (1933)
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Uncredited contributions |
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The Postman Always Rings Twice |
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