Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter. Out of these elements, James M. Cain created a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.

Unable to face reality, Mildred is the victim of her own blindness to her rotten eldest daughter's ways. Not only is her daughter unappreciative, she actually ridicules her mother as being some uncouth and ignorant embarassment. Mildred's toughness melts when confronting her monster daughter, much to her detriment. While a heartbreaking story overall, the ending is especially moving ... have your hankies ready.

Perhaps many folks reading this review has seen the famous film adaption (starring Joan Crawford) of Mildred Pierce. While the film generally carries the intent of James M. Cain's written word, there are several differences. Obviously Hollywood wanted to over-dramatize, or simply invent scenes. As much as I like the movie I enjoyed the book more; I found it to be more personal , intense and believable.

Bottom line: required reading by all mothers, strongly recommended to everyone else.

31 of 34 found the following review helpful:


Tough-minded Mildred runs out of steam  Jun 19, 2003
It's inevitable that most readers should go into this book with the excellent film version starring Joan Crawford in their minds. However, the two are quite different beasts, which is a credit to the strength and originality of both.

This is not a crime novel as the film implied, but a tough Depression era story of a woman determined to get by in a world of snobbery and class prejudices that even she herself cannot deny that she holds. When she becomes a single mother, Mildred is ashamed to have to take on a job as a waitress to keep her children in the relatively wealthy lifestyle to which they are accustomed. With nothing more than determination, she becomes the mistress of a restaurant empire and a wealthy businesswoman. But none of this is enough to endear her to her spitfire daughter Veda, whom she both dislikes and passionately admires.

It comes as a surprise that the Mildred of Cain's novel is more a Veronica Lake than a Crawford, a short-skirted coquette who uses her physical as well as mental assets to achieve what she needs. More complex is Mildred's relationship with Veda, and the character of Veda herself, a swaggering, overbearing, thoroughly nasty piece of work. If you thought Ann Blyth's Veda was unlikeable, meet this one! It's even more clear here that Mildred's motherly love has turned into unhealthy obsession. Unlike the film, the monster that is Veda is never really exorcised here.

It's the ending of the book which lets the rest down. The final quarter seems hasty - it smacks of an author who is getting a little tired of his characters and has run out of hoops for them to jump through. And while the book closes on a bleak sort of denouement, no real sense of conclusion or capitulation is gained. It should be noted that the ending is considerably different to that of the film, which, to my mind, ended things in a more satisfying matter - which admittedly had a classic crime story structure to its advantage.

Nevertheless, Cain's plain-spoken, tough-minded style and his talents as a storyteller make this a worthwhile read.

9 of 9 found the following review helpful:


Maybe the best work by maybe the best noir writer  Mar 11, 2010 By K. Swanson
I'm a big fan of Hammett, Chandler, Ellory, and a few others who can take you inside the minds of people you'd never want to meet, yet might resemble a little too much. But as time goes by I'm beginning to lean towards Cain as the master of the noir genre, and this as his masterpiece.

As much as people love the Curtiz/Crawford film, its wellspring is overall a much finer, deeper work. Where the movie panders to its audience by including a murder that doesn't occur here (and needn't), Cain never once takes the easy route of administering easy moments of "justice" (read enough noir and that word will never seem the same...). He knows how people work, and it ain't very pretty most of the time, and he ain't afeared that we'll be unentertained when things go all too realistically.

Our heroine here is in most respects a very sympathetic lady, and we start pulling for her right out of the gate. But Cain doesn't let us off that easy. He also shows Mildred's various flaws, the fatal one being her obsessive love/worship/need for the respect of her daughter Veda. After a while any sane reader has to start disliking Mildred a bit for this myopia, and wondering how a woman so bright in other matters can be so blind regarding her daughter. Yet Cain paints her portrait so thoroughly, blemishes and all, that we must eventually forgive her this tragic blindness and thus suffer with her as she is mistreated ever more hideously by her demon progeny.

Veda is so ruthless, and ruthlessly portrayed, that it gets a bit much at times, and we begin to lust for her comeuppance. What makes Cain so intensely unforgiving, and accurate, is that she never gets it. It's a bit hard to take for those of us used to neat, clean endings and summarily dispensed justice, but it rings all too true, and that's the hallmark of this genre. Add to that Cain's sharp eye for self-serving action, and painfully sharp ear for the motives lurking beneath our every day banter, and you've got a book where no one is a hero, and everyone is all too human, as good sides mingle with bad sides until we're forced to look at ourselves a little more unflinchingly.

And that's a sign of great art.

Cain delivers the goods here in so many ways, and his feel for the mind of women is very rare among male writers, if the praise of so many women for his works is anything to go by. He surely has no fear of showing many men for the callow bums we can be, and also showing how it is that women can be taken in by the charm of many a cad. He also sees through the vanity of the female, and how it can easily become an Achilles heel. No one is innocent in Cain's worlds.

All that said, this isn't exactly what I'd call a "satisfying read". It's a little too accurate about homo sap in general, and can be unnerving in its harsh portrayal of our endless deceit and egotism. But if you like literature because you like to learn more about yourself, and us, and the weirdness that we hath wrought upon each other and this world, James M. Cain is waiting for you.

And Mildred Pierce is a dame you'll never forget.

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