Mildred Pierce

James Cain’s Mildred Pierce focuses on a down-on-her luck mother named Mildred Pierce (big surprise there). The book is set in sunny California in the Depression era, and Mildred is in a pickle. Her husband has just left her, and she has two young children to support. With no work experience, how wi......more

Mildred Pierce would have made a great guest for Dr. Phil or Oprah. During the Great Depression, Mildred’s husband has been moping about since the collapse of his real estate business and takes up with another woman until Mildred has enough and throws him out. That takes care of one problem but leave......more

Often a finicky reader like myself will coordinate novel reading with leisurely travel. Its the exquisite pairing of books at beaches, at hotel balconies, at restaurants that forever, at least in my own experience, binds the two together in a truly surreal/Dadaistic effort that's worthwhile. For ins......more

I'd include this book in the genre I like to call, "Middle Class White Women Have A Really Bad Time". Other works in this genre include, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. I seem to really enjoy this genre for some reason. I came to Mildred Pierce for tw......more

Even if I hadn't read any James M. Cain before, I had expected a particular kind of story: murder, dangerous men, even more dangerous women, dark seductions that led to terrible things... And what I got with "Mildred Pierce" was actually a very literate and sophisticated story about an unhealthy mot......more