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Mildred Pierce
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, Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Out of these elements, Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
304 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1941
525 people are currently reading
10546 people want to read
About the author
James M. Cain
144 books882 followersJames Mallahan Cain (July 1, 1892–October 27, 1977) was an American journalist and novelist. Although Cain himself vehemently opposed labeling, he is usually associated with the hard-boiled school of American crime fiction and seen as one of the creators of the "roman noir."
He was born into an Irish Catholic family in Annapolis, Maryland, the son of a prominent educator and an opera singer. He inherited his love for music from his mother, but his high hopes of starting a career as a singer himself were thwarted when she told him that his voice was not good enough.
After graduating from Washington College where his father, James W. Cain served as president, in 1910, he began working as a journalist for The Baltimore Sun.
He was drafted into the United States Army and spent the final year of World War I in France writing for an Army magazine. On his return to the United States he continued working as a journalist, writing editorials for the New York World and articles for American Mercury. He also served briefly as the managing editor of The New Yorker, but later turned to screenplays and finally to fiction.
Although Cain spent many years in Hollywood working on screenplays, his name only appears on the credits of three films, Algiers, Stand Up and Fight, and Gypsy Wildcat.
His first novel (he had already published Our Government in 1930), The Postman Always Rings Twice was published in 1934. Two years later the serialized, in Liberty Magazine, Double Indemnity was published.
He made use of his love of music and of the opera in particular in at least three of his novels: Serenade (about an American opera singer who loses his voice and who, after spending part of his life south of the border, re-enters the States illegally with a Mexican prostitute in tow), Mildred Pierce (in which, as part of the subplot, the only daughter of a successful businesswoman trains as an opera singer) and Career in C Major (a short semi-comic novel about the unhappy husband of an aspiring opera singer who unexpectedly discovered that he has a better voice than she does).
He continued writing up to his death at the age of 85. His last three published works, The Baby in the Icebox (1981), Cloud Nine (1984) and The Enchanted Isle (1985) being published posthumously. However, the many novels he published from the late 1940s onward never quite rivaled his earlier successes.
He was born into an Irish Catholic family in Annapolis, Maryland, the son of a prominent educator and an opera singer. He inherited his love for music from his mother, but his high hopes of starting a career as a singer himself were thwarted when she told him that his voice was not good enough.
After graduating from Washington College where his father, James W. Cain served as president, in 1910, he began working as a journalist for The Baltimore Sun.
He was drafted into the United States Army and spent the final year of World War I in France writing for an Army magazine. On his return to the United States he continued working as a journalist, writing editorials for the New York World and articles for American Mercury. He also served briefly as the managing editor of The New Yorker, but later turned to screenplays and finally to fiction.
Although Cain spent many years in Hollywood working on screenplays, his name only appears on the credits of three films, Algiers, Stand Up and Fight, and Gypsy Wildcat.
His first novel (he had already published Our Government in 1930), The Postman Always Rings Twice was published in 1934. Two years later the serialized, in Liberty Magazine, Double Indemnity was published.
He made use of his love of music and of the opera in particular in at least three of his novels: Serenade (about an American opera singer who loses his voice and who, after spending part of his life south of the border, re-enters the States illegally with a Mexican prostitute in tow), Mildred Pierce (in which, as part of the subplot, the only daughter of a successful businesswoman trains as an opera singer) and Career in C Major (a short semi-comic novel about the unhappy husband of an aspiring opera singer who unexpectedly discovered that he has a better voice than she does).
He continued writing up to his death at the age of 85. His last three published works, The Baby in the Icebox (1981), Cloud Nine (1984) and The Enchanted Isle (1985) being published posthumously. However, the many novels he published from the late 1940s onward never quite rivaled his earlier successes.
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February 29, 2024
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 will she survive?
The first half of Mildred Pierce is fairly entertaining. However, the pacing overall is a little slow. This book was published in 1941 so this is before the internet, YouTube, and 5-second attention spans. Yet, I could not help but think that Mildred Pierce would be better off as a play or movie. And I was not disappointed. There is apparently at least one HBO miniseries and a movie based on this book.
On the one hand, parts of this books are very relatable. Mildred is determined to find work to support herself and her children, but she discovers that employers don’t want to hire women. She is not considered qualified for jobs because she doesn’t have any experience. Even in the 21st century, I was told by employers that I didn’t need a job because my “father would take care of me.”
Yet, on the other hand, Mildred Pierce did not feel real. All of her exes just agree to everything. Do you want a house? A loan? A car? They always seem to say yes, no matter the request. Where are all of these people in my life? Because most people tell me no. And these exes are always so happy with Mildred, drama free. Yeah right…..
When applying for jobs, at least two people tell Mildred straight away that she has no hope. In this internet age, applicants aren’t told anything for fear of being sued, only to receive a rejection email months after initially applying.
A bit farther in the book, Mildred begins to associate with other people (trying to be a bit vague here to avoid serious spoilers). None of these people ever quit or move away, they never call in sick.
There are a couple of twists at the end that I didn’t see coming, and I also enjoyed Mildred’s internal battle with herself. She is insecure, and she questions if she is being judged by others. Is Mildred just projecting her own insecurities or are other people judging her? Guess you will have to read this book to find out!
Overall, Mildred Pierce is a very solid novel, particularly for being published in 1941.
2024 Reading Schedule
Jan Middlemarch
Feb The Grapes of Wrath
Mar Oliver Twist
Apr Madame Bovary
May A Clockwork Orange
Jun Possession
Jul The Folk of the Faraway Tree Collection
Aug Crime and Punishment
Sep Heart of Darkness
Oct Moby-Dick
Nov Far From the Madding Crowd
Dec A Tale of Two Cities
Connect With Me!
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The first half of Mildred Pierce is fairly entertaining. However, the pacing overall is a little slow. This book was published in 1941 so this is before the internet, YouTube, and 5-second attention spans. Yet, I could not help but think that Mildred Pierce would be better off as a play or movie. And I was not disappointed. There is apparently at least one HBO miniseries and a movie based on this book.
On the one hand, parts of this books are very relatable. Mildred is determined to find work to support herself and her children, but she discovers that employers don’t want to hire women. She is not considered qualified for jobs because she doesn’t have any experience. Even in the 21st century, I was told by employers that I didn’t need a job because my “father would take care of me.”
Yet, on the other hand, Mildred Pierce did not feel real. All of her exes just agree to everything. Do you want a house? A loan? A car? They always seem to say yes, no matter the request. Where are all of these people in my life? Because most people tell me no. And these exes are always so happy with Mildred, drama free. Yeah right…..
When applying for jobs, at least two people tell Mildred straight away that she has no hope. In this internet age, applicants aren’t told anything for fear of being sued, only to receive a rejection email months after initially applying.
A bit farther in the book, Mildred begins to associate with other people (trying to be a bit vague here to avoid serious spoilers). None of these people ever quit or move away, they never call in sick.
There are a couple of twists at the end that I didn’t see coming, and I also enjoyed Mildred’s internal battle with herself. She is insecure, and she questions if she is being judged by others. Is Mildred just projecting her own insecurities or are other people judging her? Guess you will have to read this book to find out!
Overall, Mildred Pierce is a very solid novel, particularly for being published in 1941.
2024 Reading Schedule
Jan Middlemarch
Feb The Grapes of Wrath
Mar Oliver Twist
Apr Madame Bovary
May A Clockwork Orange
Jun Possession
Jul The Folk of the Faraway Tree Collection
Aug Crime and Punishment
Sep Heart of Darkness
Oct Moby-Dick
Nov Far From the Madding Crowd
Dec A Tale of Two Cities
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta
January 9, 2013
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 leaves her to support their two daughters herself. With no work experience, Mildred finally takes a job as a waitress that she finds humiliating, but eventually her parlays what she learns and her baking skills into a successful restaurant.
So Mildred could be a great example of feminine independence as a single mother who becomes a small business owner thanks to her hard work and careful planning. On the other hand, Mildred is often a conflicted mess with an inferiority complex who can never find the balance between living too cheaply or too extravagantly, and she’s got horrible taste in men.
And then there’s her daughter Veda.
Veda is an exceptional instance of a writer creating a character that you just love to hate with this snobby manipulative child who looks down her nose at the mother who supports her and grows into something even worse.
Damn, did I love to hate Veda.
I hated her so much that I hoped that Mildred would sell her off to work in a Depression-era sweatshop in which there was some kind of dangerous machinery that would mangle her.
I hated Veda so much that I hoped she’d get polio.
I hated Veda so much that I hoped she’d take an airplane ride with Amelia Earhart.
I hated Veda so much that I hoped she’d end up traveling with the Joad family so she’d get all the misery she so richly deserved.
I hated Veda so much that I started hating Mildred for loving her.
Since Cain created a couple of classic noir femme fatales in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, it’s interesting that he wrote this book about the complex and unhealthy relationship between a mother and a daughter that also took a long look at what it was like for women of the era.
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 leaves her to support their two daughters herself. With no work experience, Mildred finally takes a job as a waitress that she finds humiliating, but eventually her parlays what she learns and her baking skills into a successful restaurant.
So Mildred could be a great example of feminine independence as a single mother who becomes a small business owner thanks to her hard work and careful planning. On the other hand, Mildred is often a conflicted mess with an inferiority complex who can never find the balance between living too cheaply or too extravagantly, and she’s got horrible taste in men.
And then there’s her daughter Veda.
Veda is an exceptional instance of a writer creating a character that you just love to hate with this snobby manipulative child who looks down her nose at the mother who supports her and grows into something even worse.
Damn, did I love to hate Veda.
I hated her so much that I hoped that Mildred would sell her off to work in a Depression-era sweatshop in which there was some kind of dangerous machinery that would mangle her.
I hated Veda so much that I hoped she’d get polio.
I hated Veda so much that I hoped she’d take an airplane ride with Amelia Earhart.
I hated Veda so much that I hoped she’d end up traveling with the Joad family so she’d get all the misery she so richly deserved.
I hated Veda so much that I started hating Mildred for loving her.
Since Cain created a couple of classic noir femme fatales in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, it’s interesting that he wrote this book about the complex and unhealthy relationship between a mother and a daughter that also took a long look at what it was like for women of the era.
December 6, 2020
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 instance, I remember fondly reading "Catcher in the Rye" at a desolate Mexican beach, "The Tesseract" on my way to Mazatlan, "The Exorcist," "Sphere" & "The Beach" all making themselves unforgettable with the incessant pounding of waves. Recently, reading "The Godfather" in Vegas made me feel invigorated--pairing this with nickel slots proved to be lucky--I won like 16 bucks! And "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" actually inspired me to put on sunglasses to hide rare & unwelcome tears while strutting down the Strip. But the most ironic and utterly correct pairing thus far has been my recent trip to Knott's at California and its neighboring chicken-only one-of-a-kind diner. Close to Anaheim, well, Glendale, to be exact, that's where the fictional Mrs. Pierce lived, decades ago. She begins her entrepreneurial adventure selling pies, and then progresses to chicken-only restaurants. Did I mention that this occurs in the years following the Great Depression? Her struggle is incredible-- it is her adulation for her diva daughter (oh, those divas-- they will undo art as much as they contribute to it!) that leads to her downfall. Yes, it is impossible to stop during "a Jim M. Cain." This heroine is so strong, so very likable that the reader immediately sides with her, with a natural string of dilemmas that are tossed her way. I cannot wait to read other classics by this author, including "Double Indemnity" & "The Postman Always Rings Twice."
My boyfriend insists that this could be a perfect example to examine during a Feminism in the 20th Century class. I could not agree more-- place this on a college syllabus!
My boyfriend insists that this could be a perfect example to examine during a Feminism in the 20th Century class. I could not agree more-- place this on a college syllabus!
June 27, 2021
My introduction to the fiction of James M. Cain is Mildred Pierce and against expectations of reading another hard-boiled tale of two-bit losers and deadly dames on the make from the author of Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, I was knocked out by how plot-resistant and psychologically compelling this novel is. Published in 1941, the degree which I connected to the title character and her circumstances were a surprise and I'm reluctant to discuss the story for danger of spoiling its allure. I recommend everyone skip my hooptedoodle and read this novel.
In Glendale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles that in the spring of 1931 is considered provincial by those with money or power, Herbert "Bert" Pierce finishes pruning the trees and mowing the lawn of his Spanish bungalow. His wife Mildred is busy designing one of the pies she sells to make ends meet, with her real estate investor husband (of Pierce Homes) gutted and left jobless by the stock market crash in the autumn of 1929. Telling his wife that he's going for a walk, Bert is notified by Mildred that if he's going to see Maggie Biederhof again, he needn't bother coming back. Making sure that their daughters Veda and Moire (Ray) aren't home, Bert packs a suitcase and leaves his wife.
Mildred levels with her eleven-year-old Veda, musically gifted but full of airs and ashamed of her mother's low social status, and the seven-year-old Ray. Mildred confides to her neighbor Mrs. Gessler and initially, subsists on the illusion that her pie orders will pay the utility bills and put food on the table. But when business stalls, suddenly single Mildred agrees to a date with Wally Burgan, a business associate of her husband's who works for the receivers appointed to take over Pierce Homes. Managing to stay friends after their fling, Mildred faces the reality of a mortgage payment coming due and meets with an employment agent named Miss Turner who reads Mildred the riot act.
Miss Turner pulled out a lot of drawers, set them in a row on her desk. They were filled with cards of different colors. Looking intently at Mildred, she said: "I told you you're not qualified. O.K., you can take a look here and see what I mean. These three drawers are employers, people that call me when they want somebody. And they call me, too. They call me because I'm on the level with them and save them the trouble of talking to nitwits like you. You see those pink ones? That means 'No Jews.' See the blues? 'No Gentiles'--not many of them, but a few. That's got nothing to do with you, but it gives you an idea. People are sold over this desk just like cattle in the Chicago yards, and for exactly the same reason: they've got the points the buyer wants. All right, now take a look at something that does concern you. See those greens? That means 'No Married Women.'"
"Why, may I ask?"
"Because right in the middle of rush hour you wonderful little homemakers have a habit of getting a call that Willie's got the croup, and out you run, and maybe you come back next day, and maybe you come back next week."
"Somebody has to look after Willie."
"These people, these employers on the greens, they're not much interested in Willie. And another habit you wonderful homemakers have got is running up a lot of bills you thought friend husband would pay, and then when he wouldn't you had to get a job. And then the first paycheck you draw, there's eighteen attachments on it--and life's too short."
"Do you call that fair?"
"I call them green. I go by the cards."
"I don't owe a cent."
"Not one?"
Mildred thought guiltily of the interest that would be due July 1, and Miss Turner, seeing the flicker in her eye, said: "I thought so...Now take a look at these other drawers. They're all applicants. These are stenographers--a dime a dozen, but at least they can do something. These are qualified secretaries--a dime a dozen too, but they rate a different file. These are stenographers with scientific experience, nurses, laboratory assistants, chemists all able to take charge of a clinic, or run an office for three or four doctors, or do hospital work. Why would I recommend you ahead of any of them? Some of those girls are Ph.D's and Sc.D's from U.C.L.A. and other places. Here's a whole file of stenographers that are expert bookkeepers. Any one of them could take charge of all the office work for a small firm, and still have time for a little sleeping. Here are sales people, men and women, every one of them with an A-1 reference--they can really move goods. They're all laid off, there's no goods moving, but I don't see how I could put you ahead of them. And here's the preferred list. Look at it, a whole drawerful, men and women, every one of them a real executive, or auditor, or manager of some business, and when I recommend one, I know somebody is getting something for his money. They're all home, sitting by their phones, hoping I'll call. I won't call. I've got nothing to tell them. What I'm trying to get through your head is: You haven't got a chance. Those people, it hurts me, it makes me lie awake nights, that I've got nothing for them. They deserve something, and there's not a thing I can do. But there's not a chance I'd slip you ahead of any one of them. You're not qualified. There's not a thing on earth you can do, and I hate people that can't do anything."
"How do I qualify?"
Mildred's lips were fluttering again, the way they had in Miss Boole's office. Miss Turner looked quickly away, then said: "Can I make a suggestion?"
Mildred's tenacity and luck crossing paths with women sympathetic to her plight snare her a job interview for a housekeeper in Beverly. Convinced that Veda would disown her if she accepted such a socially inferior position, Mildred turns the job down. Stopping at a restaurant in Hollywood, she witnesses two waitresses fired. With nothing left to lose, she asks the head waitress Ida for the job. Earning twenty-five cents an hour plus tips, Mildred is handed an apron and given a crash course in serving tables. Unable to carry more than two plates at a time, her job is spared by the cook, who recognizes that Mildred knows how to prepare food.
In addition to easing her financial woes, Mildred quickly becomes the best waitress in the restaurant. Noting how bad the pies she's forced to serve are, she gains the confidence of Ida, who's locked in a battle with the owner Mr. Chris over the pie situation. When Ida discovers how masterful Mildred's pies are, she conspires to get Mildred the contract at thirty-five cents a pie. Mildred uses the income to hire a housekeeper. Though Veda discovers that her mother has taken lowly work as a waitress, Mildred no longer regards her employer as a dead end and through observation, begins to learn how to run a successful restaurant.
In an effort to retain the respect of her daughter, Mildred announces her intention to open her own restaurant, a chicken and waffles place. Wally Burgan offers Mildred a model home for the price of four thousand dollars that the receivers are taking a loss on that he feels would be perfect. He advises Mildred that she'll need Bert to agree to a divorce before she goes into business and employing still more political finesse, Mildred gets Bert to agree to this, accepting his gift of the house so her ex-husband can feel he's providing for his children. Drawing on her skills with food, hospitality and people, Mildred Pierce seems to be on her way to becoming someone Veda is proud of.
It was a hot morning in October, her last at the restaurant. The previous two weeks had been a mad scramble in which it had seemed she would never find time for all she had to do. There had been visits to Los Angeles Street, to order the equipment her precious credit entitled her to; calls on restaurant proprietors, to get her pie orders to the point where they would really help on expenses; endless scurrying to the model home, where painters were transforming it; hard, secret figuring about money; work and worry that sent her to bed at night almost too exhausted to sleep. But now that was over. The equipment was in, particularly a gigantic range that made her heart thump when she looked at it; the painters were done, almost; three new pie contracts were safely past the sample stage. The load of debt she would have to carry, the interest, taxes, and installments involved, frightened her, and at the same time excited her. If she could ever struggle through the first year or two, she told herself, then she would "have something."
As much as I enjoy hard-boiled noir with its murder plots and double crosses, Mildred Pierce resists every opportunity to be pigeonholed into that genre. As a vibrant and searing story of the Great Depression and the prewar years in Los Angeles, the novel would be great simply for the world it opens its readers to, a world of economic collapse and women surviving without the social safety nets, legal protections or technology I'm using to write this review. The reason this is one of my favorite novels ever is James M. Cain's savvy when it comes to politics, the mechanisms that people use to exert their will and get what they want, maneuvers which often remain covert.
So far as Monty was concerned, Mildred knew this was the end, but she didn't do anything about it at once. She received him as usual when he dropped in at the restaurant that night, and the next two or three nights. She even submitted to his embraces, deriving a curious satisfaction from the knowledge that his access to the very best legs was rapidly drawing to a close. Stoppage of the spending money brought Veda to her milk, as no beating had ever done, and when it did, Mildred forgave her quite honestly, in a teary little scene two or three days after Christmas. It was almost automatic with her by now to acquit Veda of wrongdoing, no matter how flagrant the offense. In her mind, the blame was all Monty's, and presently she knew exactly how she would deal with him, and when.
Like Mildred Pierce, I live on the outskirts of Los Angeles and am currently looking for a job, hoping to start my own business but have no spouse or family who can even offer a strong drink to help me along. I identified with this character, who has integrity, creativity, strength and one immeasurable weakness that threatens to destroy everything she's built. The psychological warfare in Cain's novel is far more thrilling that if guns or knives were involved and kept me invested throughout, with prose and dialogue that are jeweled. Filmmakers may have agreed, with two film adaptations, one in 1945 for Warner Bros. starring Joan Crawford and one in 2011 for HBO starring Kate Winslet.
Length: 89,164 words
In Glendale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles that in the spring of 1931 is considered provincial by those with money or power, Herbert "Bert" Pierce finishes pruning the trees and mowing the lawn of his Spanish bungalow. His wife Mildred is busy designing one of the pies she sells to make ends meet, with her real estate investor husband (of Pierce Homes) gutted and left jobless by the stock market crash in the autumn of 1929. Telling his wife that he's going for a walk, Bert is notified by Mildred that if he's going to see Maggie Biederhof again, he needn't bother coming back. Making sure that their daughters Veda and Moire (Ray) aren't home, Bert packs a suitcase and leaves his wife.
Mildred levels with her eleven-year-old Veda, musically gifted but full of airs and ashamed of her mother's low social status, and the seven-year-old Ray. Mildred confides to her neighbor Mrs. Gessler and initially, subsists on the illusion that her pie orders will pay the utility bills and put food on the table. But when business stalls, suddenly single Mildred agrees to a date with Wally Burgan, a business associate of her husband's who works for the receivers appointed to take over Pierce Homes. Managing to stay friends after their fling, Mildred faces the reality of a mortgage payment coming due and meets with an employment agent named Miss Turner who reads Mildred the riot act.
Miss Turner pulled out a lot of drawers, set them in a row on her desk. They were filled with cards of different colors. Looking intently at Mildred, she said: "I told you you're not qualified. O.K., you can take a look here and see what I mean. These three drawers are employers, people that call me when they want somebody. And they call me, too. They call me because I'm on the level with them and save them the trouble of talking to nitwits like you. You see those pink ones? That means 'No Jews.' See the blues? 'No Gentiles'--not many of them, but a few. That's got nothing to do with you, but it gives you an idea. People are sold over this desk just like cattle in the Chicago yards, and for exactly the same reason: they've got the points the buyer wants. All right, now take a look at something that does concern you. See those greens? That means 'No Married Women.'"
"Why, may I ask?"
"Because right in the middle of rush hour you wonderful little homemakers have a habit of getting a call that Willie's got the croup, and out you run, and maybe you come back next day, and maybe you come back next week."
"Somebody has to look after Willie."
"These people, these employers on the greens, they're not much interested in Willie. And another habit you wonderful homemakers have got is running up a lot of bills you thought friend husband would pay, and then when he wouldn't you had to get a job. And then the first paycheck you draw, there's eighteen attachments on it--and life's too short."
"Do you call that fair?"
"I call them green. I go by the cards."
"I don't owe a cent."
"Not one?"
Mildred thought guiltily of the interest that would be due July 1, and Miss Turner, seeing the flicker in her eye, said: "I thought so...Now take a look at these other drawers. They're all applicants. These are stenographers--a dime a dozen, but at least they can do something. These are qualified secretaries--a dime a dozen too, but they rate a different file. These are stenographers with scientific experience, nurses, laboratory assistants, chemists all able to take charge of a clinic, or run an office for three or four doctors, or do hospital work. Why would I recommend you ahead of any of them? Some of those girls are Ph.D's and Sc.D's from U.C.L.A. and other places. Here's a whole file of stenographers that are expert bookkeepers. Any one of them could take charge of all the office work for a small firm, and still have time for a little sleeping. Here are sales people, men and women, every one of them with an A-1 reference--they can really move goods. They're all laid off, there's no goods moving, but I don't see how I could put you ahead of them. And here's the preferred list. Look at it, a whole drawerful, men and women, every one of them a real executive, or auditor, or manager of some business, and when I recommend one, I know somebody is getting something for his money. They're all home, sitting by their phones, hoping I'll call. I won't call. I've got nothing to tell them. What I'm trying to get through your head is: You haven't got a chance. Those people, it hurts me, it makes me lie awake nights, that I've got nothing for them. They deserve something, and there's not a thing I can do. But there's not a chance I'd slip you ahead of any one of them. You're not qualified. There's not a thing on earth you can do, and I hate people that can't do anything."
"How do I qualify?"
Mildred's lips were fluttering again, the way they had in Miss Boole's office. Miss Turner looked quickly away, then said: "Can I make a suggestion?"
Mildred's tenacity and luck crossing paths with women sympathetic to her plight snare her a job interview for a housekeeper in Beverly. Convinced that Veda would disown her if she accepted such a socially inferior position, Mildred turns the job down. Stopping at a restaurant in Hollywood, she witnesses two waitresses fired. With nothing left to lose, she asks the head waitress Ida for the job. Earning twenty-five cents an hour plus tips, Mildred is handed an apron and given a crash course in serving tables. Unable to carry more than two plates at a time, her job is spared by the cook, who recognizes that Mildred knows how to prepare food.
In addition to easing her financial woes, Mildred quickly becomes the best waitress in the restaurant. Noting how bad the pies she's forced to serve are, she gains the confidence of Ida, who's locked in a battle with the owner Mr. Chris over the pie situation. When Ida discovers how masterful Mildred's pies are, she conspires to get Mildred the contract at thirty-five cents a pie. Mildred uses the income to hire a housekeeper. Though Veda discovers that her mother has taken lowly work as a waitress, Mildred no longer regards her employer as a dead end and through observation, begins to learn how to run a successful restaurant.
In an effort to retain the respect of her daughter, Mildred announces her intention to open her own restaurant, a chicken and waffles place. Wally Burgan offers Mildred a model home for the price of four thousand dollars that the receivers are taking a loss on that he feels would be perfect. He advises Mildred that she'll need Bert to agree to a divorce before she goes into business and employing still more political finesse, Mildred gets Bert to agree to this, accepting his gift of the house so her ex-husband can feel he's providing for his children. Drawing on her skills with food, hospitality and people, Mildred Pierce seems to be on her way to becoming someone Veda is proud of.
It was a hot morning in October, her last at the restaurant. The previous two weeks had been a mad scramble in which it had seemed she would never find time for all she had to do. There had been visits to Los Angeles Street, to order the equipment her precious credit entitled her to; calls on restaurant proprietors, to get her pie orders to the point where they would really help on expenses; endless scurrying to the model home, where painters were transforming it; hard, secret figuring about money; work and worry that sent her to bed at night almost too exhausted to sleep. But now that was over. The equipment was in, particularly a gigantic range that made her heart thump when she looked at it; the painters were done, almost; three new pie contracts were safely past the sample stage. The load of debt she would have to carry, the interest, taxes, and installments involved, frightened her, and at the same time excited her. If she could ever struggle through the first year or two, she told herself, then she would "have something."
As much as I enjoy hard-boiled noir with its murder plots and double crosses, Mildred Pierce resists every opportunity to be pigeonholed into that genre. As a vibrant and searing story of the Great Depression and the prewar years in Los Angeles, the novel would be great simply for the world it opens its readers to, a world of economic collapse and women surviving without the social safety nets, legal protections or technology I'm using to write this review. The reason this is one of my favorite novels ever is James M. Cain's savvy when it comes to politics, the mechanisms that people use to exert their will and get what they want, maneuvers which often remain covert.
So far as Monty was concerned, Mildred knew this was the end, but she didn't do anything about it at once. She received him as usual when he dropped in at the restaurant that night, and the next two or three nights. She even submitted to his embraces, deriving a curious satisfaction from the knowledge that his access to the very best legs was rapidly drawing to a close. Stoppage of the spending money brought Veda to her milk, as no beating had ever done, and when it did, Mildred forgave her quite honestly, in a teary little scene two or three days after Christmas. It was almost automatic with her by now to acquit Veda of wrongdoing, no matter how flagrant the offense. In her mind, the blame was all Monty's, and presently she knew exactly how she would deal with him, and when.
Like Mildred Pierce, I live on the outskirts of Los Angeles and am currently looking for a job, hoping to start my own business but have no spouse or family who can even offer a strong drink to help me along. I identified with this character, who has integrity, creativity, strength and one immeasurable weakness that threatens to destroy everything she's built. The psychological warfare in Cain's novel is far more thrilling that if guns or knives were involved and kept me invested throughout, with prose and dialogue that are jeweled. Filmmakers may have agreed, with two film adaptations, one in 1945 for Warner Bros. starring Joan Crawford and one in 2011 for HBO starring Kate Winslet.
Length: 89,164 words
June 16, 2020
3.5 Stars.
What A Surprise!
Wish I hadn't seen the movie first; might have given MILDRED PIERCE a higher rating. This classic novel starts out great, but often gets bogged down with minute details....and how different from the movie! Not the main storyline, of course, but certainly with regard to one major portion of the plot....and a somewhat hard-boiled (?) Mildred.
It's early 1930's when we first meet Bert and Mildred after the Great Depression has made its mark on a struggling society. The couple have two young children; Ray, a little sweetie-pie and Veda, an insolent little monster....who turns into a malicious big-mouth monster.
Everyone seems to know that Bert has a voluptuous mistress, with quite the unbound "dairy"....the reason for his home departure, so a desperate Mildred turns to what she knows best, baking pies....lots of pies as she simultaneously dotes on her older daughter Veda and offers up herself and her movie star perfect legs to more than one man of questionable character.
As the story evolves, Mildred knows she must find work to support her two girls....and her dreams for Veda, but tragedy shows its ugly face, and Mildred, at this point in the story, loses my respect when she makes a comment I still cannot believe!!!
Anyway, as Mildred finds success in providing for her family, she makes some big mistakes and the reader gets to experience a wide variety of snobbish, scheming, condescending characters, many with an air for the overdramatic....and there's violence too, but Veda, Oh. My. Gosh. Veda with her selfish outright hostility toward her "darling mother" truly takes the cake!
Overall, still enjoyed it but thought the Joan Crawford movie version was much better than the written word....this time around.
Update: May 25, 2020 - Okay....have now watched the HBO mini-series (thanks to Goodread's friend CHAR) and REALLY enjoyed it....the music, dress, furniture, vintage cars, and, of course, seeing the nasty foul-mouthed Veda in action. Characters were so well cast as was the whole shebang, BUT so wished they had used the ENTIRE 1945 storyline!
June 21, 2015
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 two reasons, one) the Joan Crawford film and two) look that's my name! Overall I did enjoy this book. You actually care about the characters, especially Mildred, which I find quite rare. The relationship between her and Veda is a legendary in the book as it is on film. I'd definitely recommend this for fans of the film and for new readers of the story. It's a hard-boiled classic.
I came to Mildred Pierce for two reasons, one) the Joan Crawford film and two) look that's my name! Overall I did enjoy this book. You actually care about the characters, especially Mildred, which I find quite rare. The relationship between her and Veda is a legendary in the book as it is on film. I'd definitely recommend this for fans of the film and for new readers of the story. It's a hard-boiled classic.
December 9, 2018
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 mother-daughter relationship! Like any good noir novel, it builds a thick and paranoid atmosphere, there's a lot of greed and backstabbing, as well as plenty of sex (though given the time it was written at, it's hinted at, more than anything else), and while there is undoubtedly a female character made of pure evil, no blood is spilled. This book is more about broken illusions, the price of what one perceives as success.
For those, who, like me, had been oblivious about this book, it's the story of a beautiful young woman named Mildred, with a very strong character and a gift for cooking, but truly awful taste in men and inexplicable love for her horrid daughter. The story opens on Mildred kicking out her unemployed, cheating husband Bert, and finding herself in a precarious position: single mother looking to keep a roof over her head in the middle of Depression-era California. Through strong will and resourcefulness, she manages to get a waitress job, which eventually leads her to owning her very own restaurant - and soon booming dining business. But none of that is good enough for her haughty, insufferably snob daughter Veda, who despite her middle-class upbringing, seems to think she ought to have all the privileges and perks of royalty. And Mildred will go to great lengths to satisfy Veda's expectations.
While I couldn't understand Mildred's attachment to that devil-spawn of hers, I otherwise admired her a lot as a character: no-nonsense, proud, independent spirit, hard-working, clever and determined, she pulls off what few women manage to do today - claw their way out of a truly bad situation and live life on their own terms. Cain certainly surprised me with this proto-feminist story! I also liked how he captured that middle-class yearning for what is often perceived as the easy life of the rich and famous. Veda is obsessed with it, sure, but Mildred is also attracted to the grand houses, fancy clothes, cars with drivers and opera seats. Of course, the difference between her and the entitled and boorish Monty is that she worked as hard as one could to earn access to such things, as where he squandered his privilege until he had to scheme to get it back.
Now everyone loves to hate Veda, and trust me, I did too. In fact, I was surprised she didn't end up dead: she is so manipulative, cruel and almost psychopathic that pretty much every other character in the book had a good reason to off her. But none more so than Mildred, whom she seems determined to hurt at every turn. She belittles her hard work and station while profiting from every advantage it offers her, she lies, she schemes - and yet Mildred still passionately loves that monstrous child! The strange power that terrible girl yields is, to me, the true mystery of "Mildred Pierce": I would have kicked her to the curb a lot sooner than her mother does! As for Monty, I hated him almost more than Veda, because while he is an absolute weasel, he doesn't have the brains to realize he's being used just as much as anybody else. Dumbass.
Cain's prose was exactly what I expected though: simple, clean, direct. Not a word is wasted and not a superfluous adjective is added. It works well for the genre and the story, but he was no prose stylist. While I found the pacing a bit too rushed in the second half (especially the ending, which while perfect, could have been fleshed out a bit more), I still really enjoyed "Mildred Pierce": it's a pretty fucked up story, but the characters are unforgettable, and if you like dark and dramatic, you will definitely enjoy this book.
For those, who, like me, had been oblivious about this book, it's the story of a beautiful young woman named Mildred, with a very strong character and a gift for cooking, but truly awful taste in men and inexplicable love for her horrid daughter. The story opens on Mildred kicking out her unemployed, cheating husband Bert, and finding herself in a precarious position: single mother looking to keep a roof over her head in the middle of Depression-era California. Through strong will and resourcefulness, she manages to get a waitress job, which eventually leads her to owning her very own restaurant - and soon booming dining business. But none of that is good enough for her haughty, insufferably snob daughter Veda, who despite her middle-class upbringing, seems to think she ought to have all the privileges and perks of royalty. And Mildred will go to great lengths to satisfy Veda's expectations.
While I couldn't understand Mildred's attachment to that devil-spawn of hers, I otherwise admired her a lot as a character: no-nonsense, proud, independent spirit, hard-working, clever and determined, she pulls off what few women manage to do today - claw their way out of a truly bad situation and live life on their own terms. Cain certainly surprised me with this proto-feminist story! I also liked how he captured that middle-class yearning for what is often perceived as the easy life of the rich and famous. Veda is obsessed with it, sure, but Mildred is also attracted to the grand houses, fancy clothes, cars with drivers and opera seats. Of course, the difference between her and the entitled and boorish Monty is that she worked as hard as one could to earn access to such things, as where he squandered his privilege until he had to scheme to get it back.
Now everyone loves to hate Veda, and trust me, I did too. In fact, I was surprised she didn't end up dead: she is so manipulative, cruel and almost psychopathic that pretty much every other character in the book had a good reason to off her. But none more so than Mildred, whom she seems determined to hurt at every turn. She belittles her hard work and station while profiting from every advantage it offers her, she lies, she schemes - and yet Mildred still passionately loves that monstrous child! The strange power that terrible girl yields is, to me, the true mystery of "Mildred Pierce": I would have kicked her to the curb a lot sooner than her mother does! As for Monty, I hated him almost more than Veda, because while he is an absolute weasel, he doesn't have the brains to realize he's being used just as much as anybody else. Dumbass.
Cain's prose was exactly what I expected though: simple, clean, direct. Not a word is wasted and not a superfluous adjective is added. It works well for the genre and the story, but he was no prose stylist. While I found the pacing a bit too rushed in the second half (especially the ending, which while perfect, could have been fleshed out a bit more), I still really enjoyed "Mildred Pierce": it's a pretty fucked up story, but the characters are unforgettable, and if you like dark and dramatic, you will definitely enjoy this book.
April 10, 2013
Mildred Pierce divorces her out of work, philandering husband and struggles to find a way to support herself and her two daughters. Too bad she attracts lazy scoundrels like a magnet and one of her daughters is a hellion...
Mildred Pierce is the tale of the titular character's obsessive devotion to her wicked nigh-sociopathic daughter and her wrong choices in men. Cain guides Mildred and her fabulous gams from one setback to the next, either from Veda or one of her douchebag suitors.
The writing is good though I didn't think it was as powerful as that of Double Indemnity or Postman. Still, it had its moments. My favorite quote was “The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.”
It wasn't the easiest book to read, however. I couldn't get behind any of the characters and I really wanted someone to start plotting to bump someone off. Mildred pretty much deserved all the crap that came her way, especially since she was glad Veda wasn't the child of hers that died. A lot of double crosses would have been great,
Until Mildred Pierce, I thought James M. Cain was a one trick pony. Granted, he did that one trick very well in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. Mildred Pierce shows that Cain had some serious writing chops even when not writing about married women and their lovers bump off their husbands. Three stars.
Also posted at Shelf Inflicted
Mildred Pierce is the tale of the titular character's obsessive devotion to her wicked nigh-sociopathic daughter and her wrong choices in men. Cain guides Mildred and her fabulous gams from one setback to the next, either from Veda or one of her douchebag suitors.
The writing is good though I didn't think it was as powerful as that of Double Indemnity or Postman. Still, it had its moments. My favorite quote was “The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.”
It wasn't the easiest book to read, however. I couldn't get behind any of the characters and I really wanted someone to start plotting to bump someone off. Mildred pretty much deserved all the crap that came her way, especially since she was glad Veda wasn't the child of hers that died. A lot of double crosses would have been great,
Until Mildred Pierce, I thought James M. Cain was a one trick pony. Granted, he did that one trick very well in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. Mildred Pierce shows that Cain had some serious writing chops even when not writing about married women and their lovers bump off their husbands. Three stars.
Also posted at Shelf Inflicted
October 16, 2020
This hardboiled 1941 novel about an entrepreneurial single mom trying to secure a better life for her and her two daughters during the Depression surpassed my expectations.
Everyone probably knows the 1945 film noir classic, which won Joan Crawford the best actress Oscar. (The novel was also adapted into an acclaimed five-part miniseries in 2011 starring Kate Winslet.)
What I didn't realize was how different the book is, and not just because of the more overt depictions of pre-martial sex and the suggestion of abortion, which wouldn't have got by the film censors back in the 1940s.
Even though the general characters remain the same, many plot points, including a major one (which I won't spoil), were altered to fit into a two-hour movie.
The Depression-era setting resonates strongly today. At the beginning, housewife Mildred (much younger than Crawford was) earns some pocket money by selling cakes and pies to neighbours. But when her unemployed husband Bert leaves her, she has no way to make the mortgage payments on their Glendale (an unfashionable L.A. suburb) home, and has to pound the pavement looking for a job.
The detail James M. Cain puts into these early passages is illuminating. Mildred's refusal to work as a waitress or cleaning lady tells you a lot about her character. (She has no work experience, and doesn't type, but she vaguely thinks she'd like to be a receptionist, which the employee agency women basically laugh at.)
The book really comes alive when Mildred, while at a restaurant, witnesses the firing of a waitress. Suddenly she has to decide whether she's going to step in to support her two daughters, or starve. In a way, this book provides as valuable a snapshot of urban social hierarchies as more literary novels like Sister Carrie.
Dissertations could be written on the role of women and work in this book. Mildred's rise from waitress to restaurant owner, and the women she chooses to bring up with her (chatty neighbour Lucy, fellow waitress Ida), is fascinating. So is Mildred's daughter Veda's desire for the easy life. (Veda is ashamed of Mildred's work, even though it helps pay for her bills.)
There's also some shrewd commentary about the fashionable, high-society set. Mildred's run-in with the dashing Monte, a playboy, affects her life – for good and bad. And I wasn't prepared for so much writing about classical music; in the book Veda is an aspiring pianist and then singer. Cain, a great lover of classical music (which features in three of his novels), has great fun with a couple of music teachers (California at the time was a haven for many gifted émigré artists who had left the old country for the new). He knew what he was writing about.
Mildred is a strong, if not very deep or introspective, character. Like Scarlett O'Hara, you admire her because of her hard work. And yet you also can't help but pity her because of how she's being used by those around her. And there are some intriguing passages where Cain describes her listening to music; she's not an aesthete, but so what? She's still worthy of respect.
Without the big plot device added to the film, Cain twists the story in some unlikely ways near the end. There are also a few over-the-top words and phrases that may have seemed tough and hardboiled in the 1940s but today seem laughable. When one woman says she's been "on the town" I had to read the passage a couple of times to understand the sexual innuendo. Elsewhere, Cain repeatedly likens a woman's large breasts to "the dairy," which was unfortunate. I was also a little shocked to see the word "fag" used as a put-down of an effeminate man.
But details like that make reading a period novel so interesting. I'm definitely going to look up some more Cain, like The Postman Always Rings Twice and the novel that inspired one of the noir-est of noir movies, Double Indemnity.
December 17, 2022
The world probably doesn't need another review of this 1941 noir classic, but here I am anyway.
James M. Cain, best known for hard boiled crime fiction, surprised me by writing a novel with a believable female character at its centre. A woman who's smart and gutsy, newly divorced Mildred Pierce builds up a business during the depression era, does everything for her children (especially when they don't deserve it), and even has an enviable sex life. I didn't expect that!
It's a bumpy road for Mildred, and her life is infused with drama-a-plenty, whether by two-timing men, money woes, or her evil sociopathic narcissist daughter, Veda (I was hoping for that selfish, conniving wench to fall down a manhole so badly!!).
While the story pulled me along and I found it provided a bird's eye view into a very specific time in American history and culture, the book is a little uneven. Almost every single character turns out to be a double crosser, which was a bit much for me (though I understand that this is a work of noir and noir readers like having their hearts stomped on). Also, a major personal loss that Mildred endures and which would cripple any normal mother, turns out to be a minor blip that is barely mentioned again. In fact, less than twenty-four hours later, she's happily serving waffles and chicken at her restaurant's opening night.
That all said, I really admired how this novel uniquely and provocatively presents two sides of the American Dream. Mildred Pierce scrabbles her way to success in the way all Americans are told they can, through hard work and determination. Then, using Veda, Cain shows us how the dream is twisted, how it is realized through deceit and unrelenting self-interest -- and how, in its almost demonic rise, it brings others down. This is what keeps the story timeless and relevant, and truly compelling.
James M. Cain, best known for hard boiled crime fiction, surprised me by writing a novel with a believable female character at its centre. A woman who's smart and gutsy, newly divorced Mildred Pierce builds up a business during the depression era, does everything for her children (especially when they don't deserve it), and even has an enviable sex life. I didn't expect that!
It's a bumpy road for Mildred, and her life is infused with drama-a-plenty, whether by two-timing men, money woes, or her evil sociopathic narcissist daughter, Veda (I was hoping for that selfish, conniving wench to fall down a manhole so badly!!).
While the story pulled me along and I found it provided a bird's eye view into a very specific time in American history and culture, the book is a little uneven. Almost every single character turns out to be a double crosser, which was a bit much for me (though I understand that this is a work of noir and noir readers like having their hearts stomped on). Also, a major personal loss that Mildred endures and which would cripple any normal mother, turns out to be a minor blip that is barely mentioned again. In fact, less than twenty-four hours later, she's happily serving waffles and chicken at her restaurant's opening night.
That all said, I really admired how this novel uniquely and provocatively presents two sides of the American Dream. Mildred Pierce scrabbles her way to success in the way all Americans are told they can, through hard work and determination. Then, using Veda, Cain shows us how the dream is twisted, how it is realized through deceit and unrelenting self-interest -- and how, in its almost demonic rise, it brings others down. This is what keeps the story timeless and relevant, and truly compelling.
October 5, 2017
“The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.”—Mildred Pierce
Imagine my disappointment in reading page after page of this novel, written by the author of such salacious noir thrillers as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, and discovering no murders have been committed! Not a drop of blood! And Cain has a reputation for writing about women that some see as disrespectful or even misogynous: Babes, floozies, tramps, prostitutes, con artists. In this novel, that might be described as literary fiction, it’s almost as if he wanted to prove to the world that he could create a sympathetic portrait of a woman: “If you have to do it, you can do it.” And he does, and she does, though Mildred also makes bad decisions with respect to her choices in men, and her support for her daughter.
Mildred Pierce (the novel) is set in the forties, so it’s kind of a portrait of working class women that for a good portion of the book reminds me of Rosie the Riveter. Mildred divorces her philandering, unemployed husband and has to figure out how to raise her two girls alone. And she does. She becomes a waitress, uses this experience to develop her own restaurant, and so on. She’s “hardboiled,” tough, like a lot of noir women, but she’s also a good (though too indulgent) mother. She is flawed, though, in that she falls for bad men, and she can’t control her very wild, spoiled, arrogant daughter, Veda. I had an idea for awhile that there might be a murder of this girl, and I find at a glance at Goodreads reviews that many are disappointed she isn’t murdered, they hate her so much!
Veda at an early age is beautiful, a talented singer, and her mother spoils her, buys her everything, and Ida is consistently ungrateful and manipulative. This is an inversion of the Mommie Dearest story of the hateful mother; Ida is the daughter we love to hate. But it’s complicated, too: “There was something unnatural, a little unhealthy, about the way she inhaled Veda's smell as she dedicated the rest of her life to this child who had been spared.” There’s also love triangle in this story involving Veda and Mildred, which calls attention to the mid twentieth century noir fascination with “deviant” psychology. Mildred is unreasonably supportive of Veda, but she is also seethingly jealous of her, and a little obsessed with her. And in a few moments, Oedipally? Mildred “tiptoed into the room she had hoped Veda would occupy, knelt beside the bed as she had knelt so many times in Glendale, took the lovely creature in her arms and kissed her, hard, on the mouth.” O-kay. . . there are a couple moments like this in the book. It’s a complicated mother-daughter book.
But this book is also from its most basic perspective about women and money, in a time in which women are largely disrespected by men. Is it still happening, the world over? Of course. Equal pay? The glass ceiling? Point made. But in this good and entertaining and a little melodramatic novel, Mildred’s a survivor, we laregely admire her for her strengths, and sympathize with her for her faults, which emerge from love. She generally figures out how to manage the system. Now to re-see the film version with Joan Crawford. And maybe the Kate Winslet mini-series.
Imagine my disappointment in reading page after page of this novel, written by the author of such salacious noir thrillers as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, and discovering no murders have been committed! Not a drop of blood! And Cain has a reputation for writing about women that some see as disrespectful or even misogynous: Babes, floozies, tramps, prostitutes, con artists. In this novel, that might be described as literary fiction, it’s almost as if he wanted to prove to the world that he could create a sympathetic portrait of a woman: “If you have to do it, you can do it.” And he does, and she does, though Mildred also makes bad decisions with respect to her choices in men, and her support for her daughter.
Mildred Pierce (the novel) is set in the forties, so it’s kind of a portrait of working class women that for a good portion of the book reminds me of Rosie the Riveter. Mildred divorces her philandering, unemployed husband and has to figure out how to raise her two girls alone. And she does. She becomes a waitress, uses this experience to develop her own restaurant, and so on. She’s “hardboiled,” tough, like a lot of noir women, but she’s also a good (though too indulgent) mother. She is flawed, though, in that she falls for bad men, and she can’t control her very wild, spoiled, arrogant daughter, Veda. I had an idea for awhile that there might be a murder of this girl, and I find at a glance at Goodreads reviews that many are disappointed she isn’t murdered, they hate her so much!
Veda at an early age is beautiful, a talented singer, and her mother spoils her, buys her everything, and Ida is consistently ungrateful and manipulative. This is an inversion of the Mommie Dearest story of the hateful mother; Ida is the daughter we love to hate. But it’s complicated, too: “There was something unnatural, a little unhealthy, about the way she inhaled Veda's smell as she dedicated the rest of her life to this child who had been spared.” There’s also love triangle in this story involving Veda and Mildred, which calls attention to the mid twentieth century noir fascination with “deviant” psychology. Mildred is unreasonably supportive of Veda, but she is also seethingly jealous of her, and a little obsessed with her. And in a few moments, Oedipally? Mildred “tiptoed into the room she had hoped Veda would occupy, knelt beside the bed as she had knelt so many times in Glendale, took the lovely creature in her arms and kissed her, hard, on the mouth.” O-kay. . . there are a couple moments like this in the book. It’s a complicated mother-daughter book.
But this book is also from its most basic perspective about women and money, in a time in which women are largely disrespected by men. Is it still happening, the world over? Of course. Equal pay? The glass ceiling? Point made. But in this good and entertaining and a little melodramatic novel, Mildred’s a survivor, we laregely admire her for her strengths, and sympathize with her for her faults, which emerge from love. She generally figures out how to manage the system. Now to re-see the film version with Joan Crawford. And maybe the Kate Winslet mini-series.
February 27, 2012
Wow, freaking wow. I had no idea I would be sucked into this novel the way I was -- I couldn't put it down! I know that phrase is overused, but seriously, I couldn't put it down! And when I did have to abandon it for life and work, I couldn't wait to get back to it. This is so different than Cain's other noir novels where sex and violence, scheming, backstabbing and a dead body feature so prominently. Unlike Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce is a full-length novel that takes its time delving deep into character and focusing on the minutiae of one woman's epic financial rise during the Great Depression (and her extremely damaging and twisted relationship with her eldest daughter Veda).
Veda -- what a vile and loathsome (and brilliant) literary creation. Don't get me wrong; I had my problems with Mildred too, but Veda just takes the cake. I've never wanted to scream and slap someone across the face so badly as I wanted to with her.
There's something very Shakespearean tragic about the entire Pierce clan -- such flaws and blatant hubris marking their unraveling. Cain isn't writing a love story or a novel of redemption. He shines a light on greed and pride in such a way that you must look, even though it's so ugly, so distasteful. Cain is a master in this, capturing 1930's California and a woman's place in it. Without ever losing the propulsive thread of his tawdry, daytime drama narrative, Cain is able to show the sneering side of class consciousness, the brute realities of gender roles, and the poisonous type of love that can bring a family to its knees.
Veda may be a villain, and easy to despise, but I became so frustrated with Mildred's choices and blind (not to mention unhealthy) devotion to her daughter that I came to despise her a little too. Can we say that by the end of all this mess everyone gets what they deserve? Well, this is Cain, so I'll let you figure it out.
July 17, 2025
Mildred Pierce
Probably more famous as a celebrated 1945 movie starring Joan Crawford, James Cain's novel "Mildred Pierce" (1941)is set in the gritty world of Depression-era Los Angeles in the 1930s. Cain is famous for the noir writing of his shorter and earlier novels, "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity", which also became classic films. Unlike these books, "Mildred Pierce" does not involve the murder of a husband by his wife and her lover, but it includes and expands upon the themes of sex, greed, and class of these two earlier books. It also portrays a world of pervasive philistinism. Unlike its predecessors, much of the focus of "Mildred Pierce" is on the mother-daughter relationship and upon ingratitude. Although related in the third person (unlike the confessional first-person narratives of Postman and Double Indemnity) in a clipped, hard-boiled tone, the novel is an introspective character study of its heroine.
When the book begins, Mildred and her husband Bert are living in a Glendale, California in a middle-class home that the couple can no longer afford. The marriage is breaking up as a result of Bert's affair with a woman named (Maggie) Mrs. Biederhoff, who appears to have been widowed for about a year. Mildred is left with the job of raising two young daughters, Ray, 7 and Vera, 11, faced with a heavy mortgage, no job, and no skills other that her ability to bake pies. Mildred also has a lovely figure and gorgeous legs. She soon falls into a relationship with Wally, an unscrupulous lawyer and former business associate of her husband. But Mildred has ambitions. At first she proudly spurns domestic work, but she eventually takes a job as a waitress in a hash house, where customers grope her legs but where she determines to learn the business and make something of herself. Mildred uses what she learns at the hash house and her skills as a baker to open her own restaurant and, eventually, a chain of restaurants, which succeed aided by the repeal of Prohibition.
Besides showing Mildred's rise as a woman entrepreneur, Cain shows her sexual relationships with Wally and with a rich idler named Monty who loses his fortune during the Depression. Monty sponges off Mildred, and his interest in her is limited to sex and to her body. Mildred maintains through most of the book an ambiguous relationship with Bert, whom she divorces to secure the property she needs for her restaurant. Of the two daughters, Veda gets most of her mother's attention, for her apparent musical talent and her snobbery. Veda mocks her mother and spurns her love, which Mildred want to gain at all costs. Mid-way in the novel, after a torrid weekend affair between Monty and Mildred, the younger daughter Ray dies from an infection caught at seaside. Her death and funeral are portrayed in detail. Mildred redoubles her efforts with Veda and with Veda's piano lessons.
Among many other things, Cain portrays the harsh competitive side of the world of classical music when Veda learns from a reputed conductor and teacher, Treviso, in no uncertain terms that she has no talent for the piano. Shortly thereafter, however, Veda becomes a famous singer. In an astonishing scene between Treviso and Mildred, Treviso compares Veda to a poisonous coral snake with no thought of anything but herself. He advises Mildred to stay away from her daughter. This is advice that few mothers would take. The relationship between Mildred, Veda, Monty and Bert leads the novel to a crashing climax and ending.
The focus of the novel is on Mildred, but the novel portrays well many secondary characters. Broadly, the characters in Cain's world are driven by lust and money. There is also a strong component of class jealousy. The male characters, including Bert, Wally, Monty, and a young man named Sam, who is the victim of an extortionate scheme of Veda's are weak, lazy characters, ruled by their sex drives. Mildred is a much more complex character than any of the men. For all her faults and her ultimate downfall in the novel, Cain evokes sympathy for her. Some of the other women, including Mildred's friend Ida, from her hash house days, and her neighbor Mrs. Gessler, receive convincing-multi-faceted tough portrayals. Besides showing character, "Mildred Pierce" has a strong sense of place in showing Southern California in the 1930s. The book includes an extraordinary scene of a furious rainstorm which Mildred braves in her attempt to break up with Monty who is siphoning off her money and her ambitions.
"Mildred Pierce" is a dark portrayal of people and place. It succeeds through its unremitting emphasis of sex, greed and human weakness and through its picture of Mildred. Strong but flawed female characters are relatively rare in American literature, particularly of Cain's time. This is a book that deserves to be read and remembered.
Robin Friedman
A review of "Mildred Pierce" written two years after the above.
With its celebrated 1945 movie adaptation and award-winning 2011 HBO miniseries, James M. Cain's 1941 novel, "Mildred Pierce" has become a small American classic. I read and reviewed Cain's novel two years ago and recently took the opportunity to read the work for a book group. I wanted to review and rethink the book after a second reading.
The novel is a genre work written in a hardboiled, terse, and tough style called "noir". The book, which was a bestseller in its day, is something of a potboiler with a melodramatic and sometimes sensationalistic plot. But it would be foolish to let the book drop with that description. Cain resisted attempts to characterize his writing as strictly "noir" and insisted instead that he was writing literature. A great deal of American creative work, in literature, music, and art, attempts to combine a popular accessible culture with something serious. Cain's book can be viewed as part of such an attempt, and I think he largely succeeds.
The novel itself mirrors Cain's attempt to combine the popular and the literary. It has as a major theme the difference between social classes and the attitudes that people in different educational or economic groups frequently display towards each other. In some respects, the book describes what were later to be called "culture wars" in the United States. Thus, most of the book is set in a small suburb of Los Angeles, Glendale, which Cain describes as lower middle class whose residents are of limited economic means with little education and somewhat narrow horizons. In the book, people from Glendale interact with residents of Pasadena, shown as a wealthy community, where some of the residents are deeply involved with, say, classical music, and with wealthier social classes from Los Angeles. The wealthier, educated people in the story look down upon and frequently exploit those from Glendale, while the less advantageously situated characters frequently are filled with envy towards their better-to-do neighbors. Cain develops the social and cultural divisions of his story in Los Angeles beginning in 1931 in the midst of the Depression and the Hoover presidency, and ending in about 1942, after the United States has entered WW II.
"Mildred Pierce" is also unusual because of its main character. It is notable enough that an American man would write a novel with a woman protagonist. This focus is rare in the hard world of noir. From beginning to end, Cain's focus is on the book's title character, Mildred Pierce, and her presence dominates virtually every scene. Cain shows Mildred Pierce's life from the age of about 27 to 38, and he develops her as a person of substantial complexity. Mildred Pierce is strong-willed, determined and ambitious. She was forced to drop out of high school and marry at the age of 17 and has no education or skills with the exception of her outstanding skill at baking. Mildred is the mother of two daughters Veda and Ray, with the latter and younger girl dying early in the story. At the beginning of the book, with the family mired in a near catastrophic economic situation, Mildred jettisons her shiftless, philandering husband, Bert, and is forced to try to survive as a single mother.
Sexuality, and Mildred's appeal to men, play a large role in this noir book, but Mildred is far from a mere sex object. Cain shows his heroine it at least three ways. First, she is a highly ambitious woman determined to be independent, to better herself, and to earn money. Cain shows her ambition, her difficult rise, and her fall. Second, the book explores Mildred's relationship to men and her attitude towards sexuality. For all her independence, Mildred remains throughout something of what the standards of her time would describe as a pushover. More than that, she falls for the wrong kinds of men, beginning with her husband Bert, through a conniving, unscrupulous lawyer, Wally, and through a sponging, once wealthy, and caddish second husband, Monty. The third component of the story shows Mildred's relationship to her daughter Vera. The daughter has Mildred's envy and ambition to move up in the world but magnified immeasurably. Cain shows Mildred sacrificing and working without respite for Vera only to have her daughter turn upon her decisively many times before the book concludes. Cain shows Mildred Pierce as an independent woman, as a lover, and as a mother throughout the novel. In short, he tries to offer a full portrayal of a woman. The reader comes to sympathize with and to understand Mildred Pierce even though the portrayal is not always attractive.
With its portrayal of Mildred Pierce, of social division and social conflict, of Depression era Los Angeles, Cain makes literature of noir. Besides Mildred, Cain develops a number of secondary characters in his novel with considerable skill. The writing and the dialog are brief and to the point, in character, acerbic, and raw. I enjoyed "Mildred Pierce" even more on a second reading than I did on the first and was able to try to expand the way I understood the book. Although Cain's book will have readers who enjoy noir as its primary audience, "Mildred Pierce" has broader themes than noir and deserves recognition as a work of American literature.
Robin Friedman
Probably more famous as a celebrated 1945 movie starring Joan Crawford, James Cain's novel "Mildred Pierce" (1941)is set in the gritty world of Depression-era Los Angeles in the 1930s. Cain is famous for the noir writing of his shorter and earlier novels, "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity", which also became classic films. Unlike these books, "Mildred Pierce" does not involve the murder of a husband by his wife and her lover, but it includes and expands upon the themes of sex, greed, and class of these two earlier books. It also portrays a world of pervasive philistinism. Unlike its predecessors, much of the focus of "Mildred Pierce" is on the mother-daughter relationship and upon ingratitude. Although related in the third person (unlike the confessional first-person narratives of Postman and Double Indemnity) in a clipped, hard-boiled tone, the novel is an introspective character study of its heroine.
When the book begins, Mildred and her husband Bert are living in a Glendale, California in a middle-class home that the couple can no longer afford. The marriage is breaking up as a result of Bert's affair with a woman named (Maggie) Mrs. Biederhoff, who appears to have been widowed for about a year. Mildred is left with the job of raising two young daughters, Ray, 7 and Vera, 11, faced with a heavy mortgage, no job, and no skills other that her ability to bake pies. Mildred also has a lovely figure and gorgeous legs. She soon falls into a relationship with Wally, an unscrupulous lawyer and former business associate of her husband. But Mildred has ambitions. At first she proudly spurns domestic work, but she eventually takes a job as a waitress in a hash house, where customers grope her legs but where she determines to learn the business and make something of herself. Mildred uses what she learns at the hash house and her skills as a baker to open her own restaurant and, eventually, a chain of restaurants, which succeed aided by the repeal of Prohibition.
Besides showing Mildred's rise as a woman entrepreneur, Cain shows her sexual relationships with Wally and with a rich idler named Monty who loses his fortune during the Depression. Monty sponges off Mildred, and his interest in her is limited to sex and to her body. Mildred maintains through most of the book an ambiguous relationship with Bert, whom she divorces to secure the property she needs for her restaurant. Of the two daughters, Veda gets most of her mother's attention, for her apparent musical talent and her snobbery. Veda mocks her mother and spurns her love, which Mildred want to gain at all costs. Mid-way in the novel, after a torrid weekend affair between Monty and Mildred, the younger daughter Ray dies from an infection caught at seaside. Her death and funeral are portrayed in detail. Mildred redoubles her efforts with Veda and with Veda's piano lessons.
Among many other things, Cain portrays the harsh competitive side of the world of classical music when Veda learns from a reputed conductor and teacher, Treviso, in no uncertain terms that she has no talent for the piano. Shortly thereafter, however, Veda becomes a famous singer. In an astonishing scene between Treviso and Mildred, Treviso compares Veda to a poisonous coral snake with no thought of anything but herself. He advises Mildred to stay away from her daughter. This is advice that few mothers would take. The relationship between Mildred, Veda, Monty and Bert leads the novel to a crashing climax and ending.
The focus of the novel is on Mildred, but the novel portrays well many secondary characters. Broadly, the characters in Cain's world are driven by lust and money. There is also a strong component of class jealousy. The male characters, including Bert, Wally, Monty, and a young man named Sam, who is the victim of an extortionate scheme of Veda's are weak, lazy characters, ruled by their sex drives. Mildred is a much more complex character than any of the men. For all her faults and her ultimate downfall in the novel, Cain evokes sympathy for her. Some of the other women, including Mildred's friend Ida, from her hash house days, and her neighbor Mrs. Gessler, receive convincing-multi-faceted tough portrayals. Besides showing character, "Mildred Pierce" has a strong sense of place in showing Southern California in the 1930s. The book includes an extraordinary scene of a furious rainstorm which Mildred braves in her attempt to break up with Monty who is siphoning off her money and her ambitions.
"Mildred Pierce" is a dark portrayal of people and place. It succeeds through its unremitting emphasis of sex, greed and human weakness and through its picture of Mildred. Strong but flawed female characters are relatively rare in American literature, particularly of Cain's time. This is a book that deserves to be read and remembered.
Robin Friedman
A review of "Mildred Pierce" written two years after the above.
With its celebrated 1945 movie adaptation and award-winning 2011 HBO miniseries, James M. Cain's 1941 novel, "Mildred Pierce" has become a small American classic. I read and reviewed Cain's novel two years ago and recently took the opportunity to read the work for a book group. I wanted to review and rethink the book after a second reading.
The novel is a genre work written in a hardboiled, terse, and tough style called "noir". The book, which was a bestseller in its day, is something of a potboiler with a melodramatic and sometimes sensationalistic plot. But it would be foolish to let the book drop with that description. Cain resisted attempts to characterize his writing as strictly "noir" and insisted instead that he was writing literature. A great deal of American creative work, in literature, music, and art, attempts to combine a popular accessible culture with something serious. Cain's book can be viewed as part of such an attempt, and I think he largely succeeds.
The novel itself mirrors Cain's attempt to combine the popular and the literary. It has as a major theme the difference between social classes and the attitudes that people in different educational or economic groups frequently display towards each other. In some respects, the book describes what were later to be called "culture wars" in the United States. Thus, most of the book is set in a small suburb of Los Angeles, Glendale, which Cain describes as lower middle class whose residents are of limited economic means with little education and somewhat narrow horizons. In the book, people from Glendale interact with residents of Pasadena, shown as a wealthy community, where some of the residents are deeply involved with, say, classical music, and with wealthier social classes from Los Angeles. The wealthier, educated people in the story look down upon and frequently exploit those from Glendale, while the less advantageously situated characters frequently are filled with envy towards their better-to-do neighbors. Cain develops the social and cultural divisions of his story in Los Angeles beginning in 1931 in the midst of the Depression and the Hoover presidency, and ending in about 1942, after the United States has entered WW II.
"Mildred Pierce" is also unusual because of its main character. It is notable enough that an American man would write a novel with a woman protagonist. This focus is rare in the hard world of noir. From beginning to end, Cain's focus is on the book's title character, Mildred Pierce, and her presence dominates virtually every scene. Cain shows Mildred Pierce's life from the age of about 27 to 38, and he develops her as a person of substantial complexity. Mildred Pierce is strong-willed, determined and ambitious. She was forced to drop out of high school and marry at the age of 17 and has no education or skills with the exception of her outstanding skill at baking. Mildred is the mother of two daughters Veda and Ray, with the latter and younger girl dying early in the story. At the beginning of the book, with the family mired in a near catastrophic economic situation, Mildred jettisons her shiftless, philandering husband, Bert, and is forced to try to survive as a single mother.
Sexuality, and Mildred's appeal to men, play a large role in this noir book, but Mildred is far from a mere sex object. Cain shows his heroine it at least three ways. First, she is a highly ambitious woman determined to be independent, to better herself, and to earn money. Cain shows her ambition, her difficult rise, and her fall. Second, the book explores Mildred's relationship to men and her attitude towards sexuality. For all her independence, Mildred remains throughout something of what the standards of her time would describe as a pushover. More than that, she falls for the wrong kinds of men, beginning with her husband Bert, through a conniving, unscrupulous lawyer, Wally, and through a sponging, once wealthy, and caddish second husband, Monty. The third component of the story shows Mildred's relationship to her daughter Vera. The daughter has Mildred's envy and ambition to move up in the world but magnified immeasurably. Cain shows Mildred sacrificing and working without respite for Vera only to have her daughter turn upon her decisively many times before the book concludes. Cain shows Mildred Pierce as an independent woman, as a lover, and as a mother throughout the novel. In short, he tries to offer a full portrayal of a woman. The reader comes to sympathize with and to understand Mildred Pierce even though the portrayal is not always attractive.
With its portrayal of Mildred Pierce, of social division and social conflict, of Depression era Los Angeles, Cain makes literature of noir. Besides Mildred, Cain develops a number of secondary characters in his novel with considerable skill. The writing and the dialog are brief and to the point, in character, acerbic, and raw. I enjoyed "Mildred Pierce" even more on a second reading than I did on the first and was able to try to expand the way I understood the book. Although Cain's book will have readers who enjoy noir as its primary audience, "Mildred Pierce" has broader themes than noir and deserves recognition as a work of American literature.
Robin Friedman
May 26, 2012
Well done story that paints a realistic portrayal of a woman's struggle for success during the depression era.
This story gives me thoughts of a previous read novel Revolutionary Road by Yates which also was adapted into big screen well. They really are both of similar tones. A decline of the family structure, loss of possessions dear to them in this world, a really heart warming and life learning story.
Is there more light at the end of the tunnel for the main protagonist Mildred?
You are taken through the to's and fro's of a mother-daughter relationship.
Can Mildred give her kids the right upbringing financially and emotionally?
She certainly has a lot of determination and love but it's not a one sided coin there's the negative forces around this enduring woman.
I have seen the movie a while back but really can't recollect much of it, I will be watching the tv adaption soon. There's quite a few remakes and adaptations to watch soon and out already The Great Gatsby, Jane Eyre, Brighton rock and A Game of Thrones. I am eagerly waiting on The Talisman By Straub and King and The The Dark Tower series by Stephen King to arrive to screen.
Movie and Book update June 6 2011
Still yet to finish the new mini-series and i want to watch the original but i found a good review by The man himself Stephen King will post it below under spoilers and some images until i get round watching it.
This is what Stephen King said about the remake
"There’s terrific acting in Todd Haynes’s chilly remake. Melissa Leo gives a tough-as-nails performance as Mildred’s one friend, Brían F. O’Byrne is perfect as Mildred’s clueless but basically good-hearted first husband, and as for Winslet and Pearce … holy crow."
The rest of his thoughts in the spoiler
http://more2read.com/?review=mildred-pierce-by-james-m-cain
This story gives me thoughts of a previous read novel Revolutionary Road by Yates which also was adapted into big screen well. They really are both of similar tones. A decline of the family structure, loss of possessions dear to them in this world, a really heart warming and life learning story.
Is there more light at the end of the tunnel for the main protagonist Mildred?
You are taken through the to's and fro's of a mother-daughter relationship.
Can Mildred give her kids the right upbringing financially and emotionally?
She certainly has a lot of determination and love but it's not a one sided coin there's the negative forces around this enduring woman.
I have seen the movie a while back but really can't recollect much of it, I will be watching the tv adaption soon. There's quite a few remakes and adaptations to watch soon and out already The Great Gatsby, Jane Eyre, Brighton rock and A Game of Thrones. I am eagerly waiting on The Talisman By Straub and King and The The Dark Tower series by Stephen King to arrive to screen.
Movie and Book update June 6 2011
Still yet to finish the new mini-series and i want to watch the original but i found a good review by The man himself Stephen King will post it below under spoilers and some images until i get round watching it.
This is what Stephen King said about the remake
"There’s terrific acting in Todd Haynes’s chilly remake. Melissa Leo gives a tough-as-nails performance as Mildred’s one friend, Brían F. O’Byrne is perfect as Mildred’s clueless but basically good-hearted first husband, and as for Winslet and Pearce … holy crow."
The rest of his thoughts in the spoiler
http://more2read.com/?review=mildred-pierce-by-james-m-cain
January 21, 2021
After being challenged in ways I have never expected in 2020, I decided 2021 was going to be the perfect year to (also) get out of my literary comfort zone and take some risks.
Because I believe taking risks is the best way to broaden your horizons, both literally and metaphorically, here I am now reviewing a book I wouldn’t have read before 2020 (stay tuned for a few more “jumps off the cliff” and “rollercoaster rides” for me in the next few months).
Picking up Mildred Pierce was a real “jump off the cliff” as I didn’t have a clue what this novel was about. For some reason, I actually thought “Mildred Pierce” was a place and not a woman’s name. Aha.
Another thing I’ll have to admit is that I had no idea that this novel belongs to a category/genre usually called hard-boiled crime fiction. Hard-boiled?! Really?! What the heck!!
After a bit of googling I found out that this literary genre of fiction is characterised, for example, by graphic sex, violence and “vivid but often sordid urban backgrounds”.
I don’t know about anyone else but I had a really hard time placing this novel in the murder-mystery-crime category and most of the time I felt like I was reading something more in the likes of a soap opera than anything else.
For me the only really sordid things about this novel were the number of pages I had to read about mortgages, other bureaucratic procedures and too many unrealistic characters playing the business type; gosh, how sordid can that be?!
Also very sordid was the number of times the story (conveniently) jumped forward only to get to a very predictable ending. Unfortunately, I could see that coming two hundred pages before *rolling eyes*.
It was too long, boring, predictable and completely irrelevant but because the writing wasn’t too bad and made for some really vivid descriptions of places, I’ll stick to a three star rating.
Now I’ll have to try a different hard-boiled author (aha) as I need to know for sure if this was a good example or if the genre is simply not my thing.
I think I’m quite a strong (or lucky) person and so far I handled (quite well, I’ll have to say) a lot of nasty stuff in my life but give me a form to fill in and that’d be me done.
Bureaucracy kills.
Because I believe taking risks is the best way to broaden your horizons, both literally and metaphorically, here I am now reviewing a book I wouldn’t have read before 2020 (stay tuned for a few more “jumps off the cliff” and “rollercoaster rides” for me in the next few months).
Picking up Mildred Pierce was a real “jump off the cliff” as I didn’t have a clue what this novel was about. For some reason, I actually thought “Mildred Pierce” was a place and not a woman’s name. Aha.
Another thing I’ll have to admit is that I had no idea that this novel belongs to a category/genre usually called hard-boiled crime fiction. Hard-boiled?! Really?! What the heck!!
After a bit of googling I found out that this literary genre of fiction is characterised, for example, by graphic sex, violence and “vivid but often sordid urban backgrounds”.
I don’t know about anyone else but I had a really hard time placing this novel in the murder-mystery-crime category and most of the time I felt like I was reading something more in the likes of a soap opera than anything else.
For me the only really sordid things about this novel were the number of pages I had to read about mortgages, other bureaucratic procedures and too many unrealistic characters playing the business type; gosh, how sordid can that be?!
Also very sordid was the number of times the story (conveniently) jumped forward only to get to a very predictable ending. Unfortunately, I could see that coming two hundred pages before *rolling eyes*.
It was too long, boring, predictable and completely irrelevant but because the writing wasn’t too bad and made for some really vivid descriptions of places, I’ll stick to a three star rating.
Now I’ll have to try a different hard-boiled author (aha) as I need to know for sure if this was a good example or if the genre is simply not my thing.
I think I’m quite a strong (or lucky) person and so far I handled (quite well, I’ll have to say) a lot of nasty stuff in my life but give me a form to fill in and that’d be me done.
Bureaucracy kills.
July 27, 2016
If ever a book screamed, "You need a book club," it was this one. You need group support and discussion for this cast of characters!
July 25, 2012
James M. Cain's Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice have always been two of my favorite crime novels. While Mildred Pierce was turned into something of a crime story in the movie starring Joan Crawford, the book is the fairly straight-forward story of a California woman who struggles to make a life for herself and her daughter, Veda, during the years of the Great Depression.
As the book opens, Mildred throws her lazy, unfaithful husband out on his ear and become the single mother of two young daughters. Forced to fend for herself, she becomes a pie maker. She later takes a job as a waitress and through hard work and grim determination parlays the skills she learns on the job into owning her own restaurant. However, Veda, Mildred's elder daughter, has nothing but contempt for her mother's efforts and is embarrassed that her mother is so declasse.
Veda, who is most certainly the daughter from Hell, aspires to higher things and never stops to appreciate the sacrifices that her mother makes on her behalf. Nor does she apparently ever stop to wonder how she, her sister and their mother would survive save for Mildred's efforts that Veda so casually mocks. The amazing thing is that Mildred is totally enchanted by this ungrateful urchin and bends over backwards to please her. Mildred constantly ignores and forgives the hateful things that Veda says and sacrifices her entire life to pleasing the little snot until, in the end, a serious crisis results.
Cain has created here two of the most memorable characters in American fiction and has woven around them a gritty story of Mildred's struggle to survive and succeed, both in business and in her plaintive attempt to win her daughter's favor. I admire what he has done, but I can't say that I really enjoyed this book all that much. I simply could not identify or empathize with any of the characters, and my patience with Mildred Pierce ran out very early on. As terrible a thing as it is to say, were I Mildred Pierce, by the third or fourth chapter of this book, her darling Veda would have been in traction and I would have been in jail. But that, of course, would have made for a much shorter novel.
As the book opens, Mildred throws her lazy, unfaithful husband out on his ear and become the single mother of two young daughters. Forced to fend for herself, she becomes a pie maker. She later takes a job as a waitress and through hard work and grim determination parlays the skills she learns on the job into owning her own restaurant. However, Veda, Mildred's elder daughter, has nothing but contempt for her mother's efforts and is embarrassed that her mother is so declasse.
Veda, who is most certainly the daughter from Hell, aspires to higher things and never stops to appreciate the sacrifices that her mother makes on her behalf. Nor does she apparently ever stop to wonder how she, her sister and their mother would survive save for Mildred's efforts that Veda so casually mocks. The amazing thing is that Mildred is totally enchanted by this ungrateful urchin and bends over backwards to please her. Mildred constantly ignores and forgives the hateful things that Veda says and sacrifices her entire life to pleasing the little snot until, in the end, a serious crisis results.
Cain has created here two of the most memorable characters in American fiction and has woven around them a gritty story of Mildred's struggle to survive and succeed, both in business and in her plaintive attempt to win her daughter's favor. I admire what he has done, but I can't say that I really enjoyed this book all that much. I simply could not identify or empathize with any of the characters, and my patience with Mildred Pierce ran out very early on. As terrible a thing as it is to say, were I Mildred Pierce, by the third or fourth chapter of this book, her darling Veda would have been in traction and I would have been in jail. But that, of course, would have made for a much shorter novel.
April 30, 2023
I picked up Mildred Pierce without realizing the book was written by the same author who penned The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, now after finishing Mildred Pierce, I've decided to put the latter two books to the top of my To-Read list.
Mildred Pierce is a young woman who had recently divorced her unfaithful husband and now she must look after her two daughters at the time of The Great Depression, and life isn't easy for a single mom of that time. Mildred's struggle had been made even more difficult by the prejudice of her time (a woman supports her family by working as a waitress! how scandalous!) and her beautiful but vain older daughter, Veda.
Mildred Pierce is a woman with many flaws (at first she even thinks being a waitress is beneath her) and she isn't always smart when it comes to life-choices, but what I can admire about her is her determination. Her daughter Veda is a character you would love to hate (she is needy, selfish and takes things from others without giving anything back, I dislike people like this), but who's to blame for Veda turning out like this? Her mother. I mean, no sane people would spoil their children like this.
Plus I really like the book's ending which has a sharp-as-knife, very edgy hard-boiled style surprise.
I heard that this book had been adapted into a movie, I wonder what the movie is like.
My review for Double Indemnity: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Mildred Pierce is a young woman who had recently divorced her unfaithful husband and now she must look after her two daughters at the time of The Great Depression, and life isn't easy for a single mom of that time. Mildred's struggle had been made even more difficult by the prejudice of her time (a woman supports her family by working as a waitress! how scandalous!) and her beautiful but vain older daughter, Veda.
Mildred Pierce is a woman with many flaws (at first she even thinks being a waitress is beneath her) and she isn't always smart when it comes to life-choices, but what I can admire about her is her determination. Her daughter Veda is a character you would love to hate (she is needy, selfish and takes things from others without giving anything back, I dislike people like this), but who's to blame for Veda turning out like this? Her mother. I mean, no sane people would spoil their children like this.
Plus I really like the book's ending which has a sharp-as-knife, very edgy hard-boiled style surprise.
I heard that this book had been adapted into a movie, I wonder what the movie is like.
My review for Double Indemnity: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
August 24, 2020
3.5*
Mildred Pierce had to ask her lazy, cheating husband Bert to leave. And he does, leaving her and their children behind. Alone and jobless, Mildred has to find a way to feed her young girls but the social status she once owned pulls her back from working as a maid or waitress. In the end she is forced to work as a waitress at a restaurant. Her ambition and talent makes her a successful businesswoman. But Mildred has two weakness: an obsession to her eldest almost diabolic daughter Veda and secondly her affinity towards cheating, manipulative men. They will be her downfall.
I liked most of the book although some parts of it were so boring, I was thinking of not completing it. I did not like any of the characters. All were selfish and controlling. I couldn't understand why Mildred loved Veda so much and I cannot stress out how much I disliked Veda. But these are the same things that kept me interested. I have not read any other books about such mothers and daughters. There are so many finer points to be discussed about these characters, this book can be used for character study.
Mildred Pierce had to ask her lazy, cheating husband Bert to leave. And he does, leaving her and their children behind. Alone and jobless, Mildred has to find a way to feed her young girls but the social status she once owned pulls her back from working as a maid or waitress. In the end she is forced to work as a waitress at a restaurant. Her ambition and talent makes her a successful businesswoman. But Mildred has two weakness: an obsession to her eldest almost diabolic daughter Veda and secondly her affinity towards cheating, manipulative men. They will be her downfall.
I liked most of the book although some parts of it were so boring, I was thinking of not completing it. I did not like any of the characters. All were selfish and controlling. I couldn't understand why Mildred loved Veda so much and I cannot stress out how much I disliked Veda. But these are the same things that kept me interested. I have not read any other books about such mothers and daughters. There are so many finer points to be discussed about these characters, this book can be used for character study.
May 21, 2023
01/2012
Very different from "The Postman Always Rings Twice" - the only other Cain I've read. Unlike that gem of darkness, this was a full-on soap opera about family life and the depression. Eminently readable. I loved it, but (unlike Postman) I don't see myself reading it again.
Very different from "The Postman Always Rings Twice" - the only other Cain I've read. Unlike that gem of darkness, this was a full-on soap opera about family life and the depression. Eminently readable. I loved it, but (unlike Postman) I don't see myself reading it again.
August 7, 2017
This was fun. Mother-daughter dysfunction at its finest.
November 20, 2020
"Mildred Pierce" is perhaps best known as the character that won Joan Crawford the 1945 Best Actress Academy Award. Those expecting noir crime fiction like in Cain's Double Indemnity or Postman will find that Mildred Pierce is not exactly crime fiction, but it shares quite a bit in common with those other famous Cain novels. It, too, is set in the Depression-era and involves an emotionally-charged character, but it is more of a life-long character study, a novel-length portrait of the rise and fall of a woman of the Depression-era.
Mildred first comes to our attention in the novel as a pie-baking stay-at-home wife of a well-to-do real estate magnate, the head of Pierce Homes, a new housing tract in Glendale, California. But, times being what they were, business has kind of grinded to a halt and the husband, Bert, spends most of his time hanging out with his mistress and away from the hen-pecking of his wife. The house is mortgaged to the hilt and, after a final spat, Bert packs his bags and moves down the street. Now, Mildred suddenly realizes that she only has a few odd dollars to feed her two kids and get by, let alone pay the bills. What follows is her going to an employment agency and getting offered a maid's job, one she could not possibly take. What if her precocious older daughter Veda would find out? And, that, my friends, foreshadows the mother-daughter relationship to come as the proper prim upper-class child has her mother's eye and heart.
Mildred eventually becomes a waitress in a hash house and manages to sell pies to the owner and makes it on her own to become a force to reckoned in the restaurant industry. But, what is telling is not her successes so much as her fear that her proper daughter will look down on what she does and that she is not upper class. Indeed, when Mildred finally becomes involved with a new man it is another layabout, a rich playboy who doesn't work, plays polo, and lives off the family money until like many great fortunes the Great Depression plays havoc with it.
The heart of the story is Mildred's relationship with this man who she ends up supporting and her daughter who she promises the world to and can never really deliver. Mildred is an amazing character and Cain's novel portrays her as so multifaceted that you feel her struggles and understand her failings as she clings to this man and to her hard-to-please daughter. Of course, there are some shocking scenes in it that come up somewhat unexpected. Cain is an amazing writer and Mildred Pierce shows the breadth of his talent.
Mildred first comes to our attention in the novel as a pie-baking stay-at-home wife of a well-to-do real estate magnate, the head of Pierce Homes, a new housing tract in Glendale, California. But, times being what they were, business has kind of grinded to a halt and the husband, Bert, spends most of his time hanging out with his mistress and away from the hen-pecking of his wife. The house is mortgaged to the hilt and, after a final spat, Bert packs his bags and moves down the street. Now, Mildred suddenly realizes that she only has a few odd dollars to feed her two kids and get by, let alone pay the bills. What follows is her going to an employment agency and getting offered a maid's job, one she could not possibly take. What if her precocious older daughter Veda would find out? And, that, my friends, foreshadows the mother-daughter relationship to come as the proper prim upper-class child has her mother's eye and heart.
Mildred eventually becomes a waitress in a hash house and manages to sell pies to the owner and makes it on her own to become a force to reckoned in the restaurant industry. But, what is telling is not her successes so much as her fear that her proper daughter will look down on what she does and that she is not upper class. Indeed, when Mildred finally becomes involved with a new man it is another layabout, a rich playboy who doesn't work, plays polo, and lives off the family money until like many great fortunes the Great Depression plays havoc with it.
The heart of the story is Mildred's relationship with this man who she ends up supporting and her daughter who she promises the world to and can never really deliver. Mildred is an amazing character and Cain's novel portrays her as so multifaceted that you feel her struggles and understand her failings as she clings to this man and to her hard-to-please daughter. Of course, there are some shocking scenes in it that come up somewhat unexpected. Cain is an amazing writer and Mildred Pierce shows the breadth of his talent.
June 11, 2017
If there's one thing I'm taking away from reading this, it's that bad things happen to good people. Unfortunately, that goes both ways. I was surprised by how this novel just sucked me in, even though there was so much to get frustrated about.
Mildred Pierce is the tale of a woman living during the Great Depression who is trying to provide for her two daughters after getting divorced from her cheating husband. The problems don't end there, as there is money to be earned and some proper family issues to deal with.
On the one hand it's interesting to see a woman doing her thing in the 1940s. Mildred Pierce was brave enough to get rid of her husband, but earning money afterwards turns into an entirely different issue. There are limitations to what she can or is expected to do and in addition to that she has also got her own pride to overcome before taking on the job as a waitress. Later that turns out to bring valuable and prosperous knowledge, making her a great example of a self-sufficient woman of that time period.
The main charm of this book lies in the relationship between Mildred and her daughter Valda. Rarely have I felt such pure and outright antipathy towards a character. What makes it worse is, how Mildred is absolutely aware of what kind of daughter she has:
"She was afraid of Veda, of her snobbery, her contempt, her unbreakable spirit. And she was afraid of something that seemed always lurking under Veda's bland, phone tonnes: a cold, cruel, coarse desire to torture her mother, to humiliate her, above everything else, to hurt her."
And yet she's a mother and can't help but devote herself to the wellbeing of her family. It's painful and upsetting to watch, but at the same time that relationship is exceptionally well written, so you understand where she is coming from. The more Mildred tried, the less I liked her for it. I'm not going to lie, I honestly hoped something bad would happen to Veda. I'm left with a bittersweet feeling.
Mildred Pierce is the tale of a woman living during the Great Depression who is trying to provide for her two daughters after getting divorced from her cheating husband. The problems don't end there, as there is money to be earned and some proper family issues to deal with.
On the one hand it's interesting to see a woman doing her thing in the 1940s. Mildred Pierce was brave enough to get rid of her husband, but earning money afterwards turns into an entirely different issue. There are limitations to what she can or is expected to do and in addition to that she has also got her own pride to overcome before taking on the job as a waitress. Later that turns out to bring valuable and prosperous knowledge, making her a great example of a self-sufficient woman of that time period.
The main charm of this book lies in the relationship between Mildred and her daughter Valda. Rarely have I felt such pure and outright antipathy towards a character. What makes it worse is, how Mildred is absolutely aware of what kind of daughter she has:
"She was afraid of Veda, of her snobbery, her contempt, her unbreakable spirit. And she was afraid of something that seemed always lurking under Veda's bland, phone tonnes: a cold, cruel, coarse desire to torture her mother, to humiliate her, above everything else, to hurt her."
And yet she's a mother and can't help but devote herself to the wellbeing of her family. It's painful and upsetting to watch, but at the same time that relationship is exceptionally well written, so you understand where she is coming from. The more Mildred tried, the less I liked her for it. I'm not going to lie, I honestly hoped something bad would happen to Veda. I'm left with a bittersweet feeling.
May 4, 2019
Love these old melodramatic plot lines- VEDA!!
February 16, 2016
What an odd, sad little book this is. I quite thought I'd have no trouble relating to Mildred at the beginning - I got hooked on, "She was a little given to rehearshing things in her mind, and having imaginary triumphs over people who has upset her in one way and another," because I do that all the time. But she ends up being such a weak, small-minded jerk that I lost any sympathy I'd had for her.
May 18, 2023
This was mostly slow paced with lots of character detail and was a compelling read. Mildred Pierce kicks out her out of work husband and goes into business for herself after she realises she is such a good cook she could run her own restaurant. Considering the time this was written I found Mildred to be quite a modern woman particularly in her sex life. Her big problem is her devotion to her awful, snobby and precocious daughter, Veda. Veda gets a few slaps and I think she deserved all of them and more! What a horrible girl. Interesting observations of class and attitudes to work, politics and gender.
March 27, 2018
4.5 stars. Thoroughly enjoyed my first read by James M Cain and will now be on the hunt to read The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. I remember watching the film of this book years ago and loved it. This is a very character driven book and Mildred and Veda are something else!
May 21, 2020
When my sister first put this book on my recommendation list, I thought, wait, is she talking about one of my favorite films? I mentioned some plot points in the film and she said, yep, that's one in the same!
When I was a pre-teen, before cable was around, I loved to watch old movies on television, particularly from the 1940s. Many I have forgotten, but there's no way you can forget Mildred Pierce - or her insanely evil daughter VEDA! However, I sadly did not even know it was based off of a novel. And I had never heard of James Cain. Seriously, he should be mandatory reading for high schoolers and/or college kids.
Mildred Pierce was incredible on so many levels - I don't even have enough space here to do it justice. Fast-paced, suspenseful, written back in the day, however, it felt contemporary. Vivid setting, and a host of three dimensional characters that jump off the page! There is only one other daughter in literature who is as awful as Veda - remember Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
Lots of material here for incredible book club discussions: mother-daughter relationships, marriage, women having careers, all kinds of sexual topics, rich vs. poor, Cain and the noir genre, novel vs. film, California of today vs. yesterday, etc., etc.
This is one wild ride you must take!!
When I was a pre-teen, before cable was around, I loved to watch old movies on television, particularly from the 1940s. Many I have forgotten, but there's no way you can forget Mildred Pierce - or her insanely evil daughter VEDA! However, I sadly did not even know it was based off of a novel. And I had never heard of James Cain. Seriously, he should be mandatory reading for high schoolers and/or college kids.
Mildred Pierce was incredible on so many levels - I don't even have enough space here to do it justice. Fast-paced, suspenseful, written back in the day, however, it felt contemporary. Vivid setting, and a host of three dimensional characters that jump off the page! There is only one other daughter in literature who is as awful as Veda - remember Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
Lots of material here for incredible book club discussions: mother-daughter relationships, marriage, women having careers, all kinds of sexual topics, rich vs. poor, Cain and the noir genre, novel vs. film, California of today vs. yesterday, etc., etc.
This is one wild ride you must take!!
May 19, 2022
“They spoke quickly, as though they were saying things that scalded their mouths, and had to be cooled with spit.”
This is a train wreck of a story. Mildred is subtly twisted, with a low grade desperation to her that kept me turning pages. The combination of her drive and her aloofness made her interesting and unpredictable, and the more that is revealed about her relationship with her daughter, the more things get dark and ugly.
“It always came back to the same thing. She was afraid of Veda, of her snobbery, her contempt, her unbreakable spirit. And she was afraid of something that seemed always lurking under Veda’s bland, phony toniness: a cold, cruel, coarse desire to torture her mother, to humiliate her, above everything else, to hurt her.”
I haven’t read much noir but I’ve seen a number of films, including both the Joan Crawford and Kate Winslet (much better at Mildred’s aloofness) versions of this novel. I find noir is like a dark fantasy, where you don’t stop to ask why the characters act the way they do, you just let yourself be carried away into their messed-up world. Then when you return, everything looks brighter.
This is a train wreck of a story. Mildred is subtly twisted, with a low grade desperation to her that kept me turning pages. The combination of her drive and her aloofness made her interesting and unpredictable, and the more that is revealed about her relationship with her daughter, the more things get dark and ugly.
“It always came back to the same thing. She was afraid of Veda, of her snobbery, her contempt, her unbreakable spirit. And she was afraid of something that seemed always lurking under Veda’s bland, phony toniness: a cold, cruel, coarse desire to torture her mother, to humiliate her, above everything else, to hurt her.”
I haven’t read much noir but I’ve seen a number of films, including both the Joan Crawford and Kate Winslet (much better at Mildred’s aloofness) versions of this novel. I find noir is like a dark fantasy, where you don’t stop to ask why the characters act the way they do, you just let yourself be carried away into their messed-up world. Then when you return, everything looks brighter.
June 22, 2018
A bit too long for me. But even so, an enjoyable reading.
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