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Серенада
John Sharp had just flopped in Rigoletto, down in Mexico, when he first saw Juana. Somehow, the beautiful Mexican-Indian prostitute offered him a way back, a chance to rebuild his career in New York and Hollywood. But then, like the snake in the garden, Winston Hawes, the prodigiously accomplished conductor, came back in to Sharp's life and an eternal, and lethal, triangle was formed.
232 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1937
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1194 people want to read
About the author
James M. Cain
143 books876 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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 133 reviews
July 21, 2015
This is a real hidden gem. I probably wouldn't have even come across this work if it weren't in my bind-up of Cain's novels. The story is of a haggard opera singer who gets with an Indian prostitute in Mexico. They decide to try and make it back to America where our protagonist makes it big with his wonderful operatic talent. However, his past catches up with him and things turn, well, hardboiled.
I thoroughly enjoyed this short novel. It might possibly be my favourite of Cain's works. It's wonderfully paced with highly memorable characters and numerous conversations about opera from Carmen to Pagliacci to the protagonist's utter disdain for Rossini. I highly recommend this novel to those who are new to the hardboiled genre.
I thoroughly enjoyed this short novel. It might possibly be my favourite of Cain's works. It's wonderfully paced with highly memorable characters and numerous conversations about opera from Carmen to Pagliacci to the protagonist's utter disdain for Rossini. I highly recommend this novel to those who are new to the hardboiled genre.
December 21, 2025
За мен "Серенада" е много добър класически ноар роман, който не може да бъде написан днес, по много различни причини…
Хареса ми и със сигурност ще прочета още от книгите на този отличен автор!
Цитат:
"Когато някой мъж в Гватаемала наистина иска да достави удоволствие на момичетата, гощава ги с консервирани аспержи."
Хареса ми и със сигурност ще прочета още от книгите на този отличен автор!
Цитат:
"Когато някой мъж в Гватаемала наистина иска да достави удоволствие на момичетата, гощава ги с консервирани аспержи."
May 24, 2011
One of the craziest books I've ever read. So crazy it deserves a spoilery synopsis. Spoilers to follow:
Johnny is a down and out American singer in Mexico. Once he was a success in Europe, but he lost his voice and now he's broke. Also he's really bigoted. It's good to be prepared for that instead of hit in the face with his racist description of his love interest, Juana, on the very first page. Juana's a prostitute he steals from a bullfighter, but when he gets to her place and sings to her a bit, she suddenly says he should go.
A few weeks later, though, she asks if he wants a job working in the whorehouse she's planning to start in Acapulco and they set off together. After ditching her parents rudely, they get caught in a rainstorm and take refuge in a church. She describes his singing voice as being like a priest's, which he doesn't appreciate. Then he rapes her (but "only technically, brother," because she totally wants it), and after that they're in love. Even better, his voice comes back!
They go back to America where he starts his career again. He goes into the movies--Swain includes truly hilarious synopsis of fake Hollywood B-movies built around stock footage. His two hits "Woolies" (sheep in the snow) and "Paul Bunyan" (Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade) make him a big star. He even pressures the studio into a pricey contract for 3 pictures. Then the Met calls and wants him to perform opera and he'd rather do that, but the head of the studio tells him opera's finished, see, and he doesn't want him performing. So he takes Juana to New York and performs anyway. He hated Hollywood, especially after he takes Juana to a party and everyone is rude to her (i.e., even more racist than he is!).
This gets him into hot water with his contract, not to mention the radio show that planned a whole ad campaign with him based on the Paul Bunyan "My Pal Babe" number. Enter an old aquaintance, a wealthy producer our hero worked with in Europe before he lost his voice. "Worked with?" Hmmmm...maybe more than that.
Winston, it turns out, kind of owns the studio and is behind a lot of Johnny's troubles. He fixes the contract problem but insists Johnny sing in a big gala he's throwing. Johnny's nervous about performing--what if Juana figures out what's really going on? You might think he was safe since every other one of Juana's lines is "I no understand," but she tumbles to the whole thing right away. Juana might not be able to figure out how to wear a hat or how contracts work how remember it's cold in New York in the winter, but she knows when two men are former lovers.
Remember when Johnny first went to Juana's place and sang for her and she sent him home? It was because she could hear the gay in his voice. Gay men can't sing. Their voices aren't manly. They sing like priests. Or cows. That's why she sent him away. But she did think he'd make a good bouncer at her whorehouse and that's why she contacted him again. Then he raped her and that was very manly and she liked it a lot! (Yes, she actually says this.) So she thought she was wrong. But now Winston is here and he's already losing his voice again. Gay men can't sing! (This must be why Broadway is struggling.)
Not that Johnny is gay, he explains. Every man has 5% of gay in him, and Johnny was just unlucky enough to meet the one guy in the whole world that would bring it out in him. Juana devotes herself to keeping Johnny straight. Winston moves into their building and has gay parties and tries to make Johnny jealous. He invites them to a party while secretly arranging to have Juana deported so he can have Johnny for himself! But they find out about the plan. Juana entertains all the lesbians who act like men and gay men who act like sissies at the party with bullfighting stories and does a mock bullfight with Winston where he's the bull. Then she spears him through the head adn sticks him to the couch. Ole! That's what Johnny wants to cry. She's killed the gay in him! Despite being Mexican and Native American, Juana is awesome!
Now they have to flee. Johnny insists on going with Juana. He struggles with not being able to sing anymore for fear of someone recognizing him. (He even has a brief moment of gay panic when he wonders if he's too admiring of a baseball player--don't worry, Winston took Johnny's shameful gay to the grave with him.) Eventually Juana goes back to Mexico and hooks back up with the bullfighter. He chases her. The bullfighter mocks him for being a fairy, he gets mad and sings in his manly voice (proving he is totally not gay!), he gets recognized and Juana gets killed.
Did I lie? Craziest book ever.
Johnny is a down and out American singer in Mexico. Once he was a success in Europe, but he lost his voice and now he's broke. Also he's really bigoted. It's good to be prepared for that instead of hit in the face with his racist description of his love interest, Juana, on the very first page. Juana's a prostitute he steals from a bullfighter, but when he gets to her place and sings to her a bit, she suddenly says he should go.
A few weeks later, though, she asks if he wants a job working in the whorehouse she's planning to start in Acapulco and they set off together. After ditching her parents rudely, they get caught in a rainstorm and take refuge in a church. She describes his singing voice as being like a priest's, which he doesn't appreciate. Then he rapes her (but "only technically, brother," because she totally wants it), and after that they're in love. Even better, his voice comes back!
They go back to America where he starts his career again. He goes into the movies--Swain includes truly hilarious synopsis of fake Hollywood B-movies built around stock footage. His two hits "Woolies" (sheep in the snow) and "Paul Bunyan" (Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade) make him a big star. He even pressures the studio into a pricey contract for 3 pictures. Then the Met calls and wants him to perform opera and he'd rather do that, but the head of the studio tells him opera's finished, see, and he doesn't want him performing. So he takes Juana to New York and performs anyway. He hated Hollywood, especially after he takes Juana to a party and everyone is rude to her (i.e., even more racist than he is!).
This gets him into hot water with his contract, not to mention the radio show that planned a whole ad campaign with him based on the Paul Bunyan "My Pal Babe" number. Enter an old aquaintance, a wealthy producer our hero worked with in Europe before he lost his voice. "Worked with?" Hmmmm...maybe more than that.
Winston, it turns out, kind of owns the studio and is behind a lot of Johnny's troubles. He fixes the contract problem but insists Johnny sing in a big gala he's throwing. Johnny's nervous about performing--what if Juana figures out what's really going on? You might think he was safe since every other one of Juana's lines is "I no understand," but she tumbles to the whole thing right away. Juana might not be able to figure out how to wear a hat or how contracts work how remember it's cold in New York in the winter, but she knows when two men are former lovers.
Remember when Johnny first went to Juana's place and sang for her and she sent him home? It was because she could hear the gay in his voice. Gay men can't sing. Their voices aren't manly. They sing like priests. Or cows. That's why she sent him away. But she did think he'd make a good bouncer at her whorehouse and that's why she contacted him again. Then he raped her and that was very manly and she liked it a lot! (Yes, she actually says this.) So she thought she was wrong. But now Winston is here and he's already losing his voice again. Gay men can't sing! (This must be why Broadway is struggling.)
Not that Johnny is gay, he explains. Every man has 5% of gay in him, and Johnny was just unlucky enough to meet the one guy in the whole world that would bring it out in him. Juana devotes herself to keeping Johnny straight. Winston moves into their building and has gay parties and tries to make Johnny jealous. He invites them to a party while secretly arranging to have Juana deported so he can have Johnny for himself! But they find out about the plan. Juana entertains all the lesbians who act like men and gay men who act like sissies at the party with bullfighting stories and does a mock bullfight with Winston where he's the bull. Then she spears him through the head adn sticks him to the couch. Ole! That's what Johnny wants to cry. She's killed the gay in him! Despite being Mexican and Native American, Juana is awesome!
Now they have to flee. Johnny insists on going with Juana. He struggles with not being able to sing anymore for fear of someone recognizing him. (He even has a brief moment of gay panic when he wonders if he's too admiring of a baseball player--don't worry, Winston took Johnny's shameful gay to the grave with him.) Eventually Juana goes back to Mexico and hooks back up with the bullfighter. He chases her. The bullfighter mocks him for being a fairy, he gets mad and sings in his manly voice (proving he is totally not gay!), he gets recognized and Juana gets killed.
Did I lie? Craziest book ever.
August 29, 2012
[7/10]
Not my favorite novel by Cain. His writing is good, and some scenes really stand out : the introduction of the main characters in a Mexican Cantina, taking shelter in a small church during a storm, an opera concert on a big stadium in Los Angeles, a party in a New York apartment. But I thought the story was too slow, spending too much time building up steam towards a future crash that you feel is coming, but you're not sure from what direction it will hit. I believe it was a deliberate setup, and well executed, and probably I would have appreciated it more if I really cared about the fate of John Howard Sharp.
He's the narrator of the novel, an opera singer who lost his voice and finds himself cast adrift in Mexico without money to pay rent or to eat. Initially, he appears as a smooth operator, street wise and assertive, dominating his woman and skilfully negotiating his Hollywood debut later on. I also greatly enjoyed his classical music disertations: Cain himself has a musical background and puts it to good use in this novel. I'm not really an opera fan, but I listened to most the great recordings, and could follow his points, more or less. What turned me off was what I consider some rather strong racist comments about Mexicans being 'primitive' and about 8000 years behind in the civilization race. He goes on and on about how repulsive he finds their poverty, and how stupid they are, and how lazy. He is also abusive and condescendent towards Juana, despite professing his love for her. Throughout the novel she is only once or twice referred to with her given name, it's always "her" or "she" - something impersonal, alien, an outsider in Sharp self obsessed universe. Again, it is probably a deliberate device on the part of the author, used to accentuate the rift between the lovers later on and the shift in Sharp personality once he gets to New York ( Itry to be a bit vague, in order to avoid spoilers).
I am still unsure if I should characterize Sharp as delusional, split personality or unreliable narrator. I didn't buy into his abrupt translations from assertive, dominant, quick witted man to panic prone, self-destructive schmuck. These two faces have too little common traits to reconcile into the same person.
I'm going to keep trying with James M Cain, because I love his style and his fatalistic approach, even with all the complaints I had about this particular story.
Not my favorite novel by Cain. His writing is good, and some scenes really stand out : the introduction of the main characters in a Mexican Cantina, taking shelter in a small church during a storm, an opera concert on a big stadium in Los Angeles, a party in a New York apartment. But I thought the story was too slow, spending too much time building up steam towards a future crash that you feel is coming, but you're not sure from what direction it will hit. I believe it was a deliberate setup, and well executed, and probably I would have appreciated it more if I really cared about the fate of John Howard Sharp.
He's the narrator of the novel, an opera singer who lost his voice and finds himself cast adrift in Mexico without money to pay rent or to eat. Initially, he appears as a smooth operator, street wise and assertive, dominating his woman and skilfully negotiating his Hollywood debut later on. I also greatly enjoyed his classical music disertations: Cain himself has a musical background and puts it to good use in this novel. I'm not really an opera fan, but I listened to most the great recordings, and could follow his points, more or less. What turned me off was what I consider some rather strong racist comments about Mexicans being 'primitive' and about 8000 years behind in the civilization race. He goes on and on about how repulsive he finds their poverty, and how stupid they are, and how lazy. He is also abusive and condescendent towards Juana, despite professing his love for her. Throughout the novel she is only once or twice referred to with her given name, it's always "her" or "she" - something impersonal, alien, an outsider in Sharp self obsessed universe. Again, it is probably a deliberate device on the part of the author, used to accentuate the rift between the lovers later on and the shift in Sharp personality once he gets to New York ( Itry to be a bit vague, in order to avoid spoilers).
I am still unsure if I should characterize Sharp as delusional, split personality or unreliable narrator. I didn't buy into his abrupt translations from assertive, dominant, quick witted man to panic prone, self-destructive schmuck. These two faces have too little common traits to reconcile into the same person.
I'm going to keep trying with James M Cain, because I love his style and his fatalistic approach, even with all the complaints I had about this particular story.
October 16, 2012
To use the cliche - omg. Despite my lifelong passion for crime mystery/american noir, James M. Cain never made it onto my 'must-read' list the way Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Jim Thompson and Charles Ray Willeford have.
I'd seen some of the 18 films made from his novels - 'Mildred Pierce', 'Double Indemnity', 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' (and Visconti's version 'Ossessione'). Seen the movies, don't need to read the books - or so I thought. How wrong can you be.
'Serenade' turns out to be one of the greatest novels I ever read. It's a tragic opera. Obsession seems to one of Cain's great themes and the protagonist in this one is more 'caught up' in the woman he loves than anything I've ever read.
Tom Wolfe is quoted in the blurb on the back of my copy; " Nobody has ever quite pulled it off the way Cain does, not Hemingway, and not even Raymond Chandler". Mr. Wolfe is right and here's why. With Cain you feel he's actually been there, done that, in ways that Hemingway could only wish. With Cain, you get a world view much wiser and broader than anything Chandler's Marlowe could express, plus (and it's a big 'plus') you get plotting that Chandler doesn't come close to.
I'd seen some of the 18 films made from his novels - 'Mildred Pierce', 'Double Indemnity', 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' (and Visconti's version 'Ossessione'). Seen the movies, don't need to read the books - or so I thought. How wrong can you be.
'Serenade' turns out to be one of the greatest novels I ever read. It's a tragic opera. Obsession seems to one of Cain's great themes and the protagonist in this one is more 'caught up' in the woman he loves than anything I've ever read.
Tom Wolfe is quoted in the blurb on the back of my copy; " Nobody has ever quite pulled it off the way Cain does, not Hemingway, and not even Raymond Chandler". Mr. Wolfe is right and here's why. With Cain you feel he's actually been there, done that, in ways that Hemingway could only wish. With Cain, you get a world view much wiser and broader than anything Chandler's Marlowe could express, plus (and it's a big 'plus') you get plotting that Chandler doesn't come close to.
July 6, 2024
July 6, 10am ~~ I have enjoyed Cain's work in the past and was interested in this one when I learned it was the source for a Mario Lanza movie, although Lanza demanded many alterations to the script before accepting it.
However, from the first page I was disturbed by the repulsive racist tone of the narrator's thoughts, and by the beginning of chapter two I could not handle any more. I tried to tell myself it was the character's attitude, not the author's, and that I should hang in there and see what happened, but I was just too disgusted to continue.
DNF at page 15.
However, from the first page I was disturbed by the repulsive racist tone of the narrator's thoughts, and by the beginning of chapter two I could not handle any more. I tried to tell myself it was the character's attitude, not the author's, and that I should hang in there and see what happened, but I was just too disgusted to continue.
DNF at page 15.
November 2, 2013
Damn it all. I wish I liked this book as much as my Goodreads friends Tfitoby and Jackson.
I wearied page after page after page of opera terms, singing terms, opera names, and page after page about music. Get my drift?
Perhaps if I were more musically inclined, it would have been a better read for me.
And the last quarter of the book which was great, did not make up for the dreariness and torture reading the first three-quarters of the book.
Yes, I'm glad I read it because I love Cain's writing. He's one of the 'founding fathers' of noir/hard-boiled, my favorite genre. So this book was a "must-read" for me.
Hope Cain got all his ambitions about being a professional singer out of his system in this book and never writes another word about music. Wouldn't hurt my feelings.
On my dining room table is The Postman Always Rings Twice which I know will blow my socks off.
For Serenade I waffled between two and three stars, settling on 2.5 stars. Rounding up like I do, it gets three stars, the other half, easily just because it's James M. Cain and it is such a very cool book graciously given to me by Tfitoby!
I wearied page after page after page of opera terms, singing terms, opera names, and page after page about music. Get my drift?
Perhaps if I were more musically inclined, it would have been a better read for me.
And the last quarter of the book which was great, did not make up for the dreariness and torture reading the first three-quarters of the book.
Yes, I'm glad I read it because I love Cain's writing. He's one of the 'founding fathers' of noir/hard-boiled, my favorite genre. So this book was a "must-read" for me.
Hope Cain got all his ambitions about being a professional singer out of his system in this book and never writes another word about music. Wouldn't hurt my feelings.
On my dining room table is The Postman Always Rings Twice which I know will blow my socks off.
For Serenade I waffled between two and three stars, settling on 2.5 stars. Rounding up like I do, it gets three stars, the other half, easily just because it's James M. Cain and it is such a very cool book graciously given to me by Tfitoby!
June 22, 2016
I can't top this review for its summary of the sheer batshit anti-glory that is this book. That is some must-read commentary.
Serenade revolves around Johnny Sharp, a former opera singer whose ruined voice washed him up in Mexico. Johnny hates Mexico, and boy, is he ever happy to tell you about it: the early parts of this bus are like being stuck on an airplane next to the world's worst tourist, who has intense opinions on everything from mariachi music to how Mexicans observe arguments. He's thoroughly racist, and also ridiculously petty. To Cain's credit, there's the clear implication that Johnny hates Mexico because he is a bitter, self-hating failure who prefers to blame everyone and everything else for his own unhappiness instead of actually trying to improve his lot in life. Plus, he's a massively unpleasant person, so even if Mexico's only accomplishment as a country was making sure John Howard Sharp had a terrible experience within its borders, any amount of patriotism on its behalf would be entirely justified.
As part of his sad-sack routine, Johnny gives a lottery ticket to Juana, a Mexican prostitute, and Juana retrieves him a little while later when it turns out that the ticket was a winner. She wants to establish a brothel/hotel catering primarily to Americans, and she figures Johnny could help. (Johnny is at his best when he's scheming, so his mini-speech on how to run a brothel while conning American businessmen into thinking they're having no-strings-attached hook-ups instead of paying for it is as genuinely likable as he gets in the entire novel.) Unfortunately, Johnny is the worst human being alive, so instead of helping Juana, he proceeds to effectively devote the rest of the book to ruining her life.
Essentially, reading Serenade is like the experience of having someone with excellent hardboiled noir instincts and prose and a slightly unfortunate opera fixation relay to you the fever dream they had about their gay panic and their bad trip to Mexico. It's like the inverse of the old "baby with the bathwater" idea: here, it's the bathwater (the writing, the intensity) that would be worth keeping if only you could throw out the babies (i.e., everything the novel is actually about). There are moments that suggest that Cain is in control of his material instead of the other way around--after Johnny --but then mere pages later, the doomy force of his tropes overwhelms his logic, and someone's nipples are getting smeared with iguana soup.
When the novel is at its best, the tension between logic and high-octane fatalism is embodied in the characters themselves. Johnny is repeatedly begged to leave Juana alone because he's going to get her killed, but he can't--ostensibly because he loves her too much to do anything as trivial as actually saving her life by staying away from her, but more accurately because he's convinced his heterosexuality depends upon having her within reach. That could actually be the recipe for a really excellent noir, so this novel is blighted not so much by Johnny's awfulness as by two deeply flawed building-block assumptions: Juana's love for Johnny and the reason Johnny lost his voice. These no longer ring true to even the most basic understanding of human nature, if they ever did. Noir depends upon our recognition of how human greed, weakness, anger, and lust really are; when the characters fail the test of seeming to work by the rules of human nature or even human biology, something crucial is lost.
So why four stars? Because, ultimately, at least past the "guy complaining to you about his life" opening section, this novel had a hypnotic pull, with great atmosphere, an unusual plot, and Cain's trademark intensity and fatalism. Even the off-the-wall aspects give it an intriguing individuality--it's like a much better-executed version of the movie The Room, where it's so obviously the product of one person's bizarre mind that some of the flaws seem almost beside the point--but that's a view I have the luxury of assuming only from the vantage point of 2016, where surely no one is under the impression that I can't emphasize enough that those flaws are considerable and even vicious. It's in no way a must-read--it's not even a must-read of James M. Cain's novels--but it is a bizarrely interesting one, and it's especially fun to do a run-down of the plot to your friends and watch their faces fill with baffled horror.
Serenade revolves around Johnny Sharp, a former opera singer whose ruined voice washed him up in Mexico. Johnny hates Mexico, and boy, is he ever happy to tell you about it: the early parts of this bus are like being stuck on an airplane next to the world's worst tourist, who has intense opinions on everything from mariachi music to how Mexicans observe arguments. He's thoroughly racist, and also ridiculously petty. To Cain's credit, there's the clear implication that Johnny hates Mexico because he is a bitter, self-hating failure who prefers to blame everyone and everything else for his own unhappiness instead of actually trying to improve his lot in life. Plus, he's a massively unpleasant person, so even if Mexico's only accomplishment as a country was making sure John Howard Sharp had a terrible experience within its borders, any amount of patriotism on its behalf would be entirely justified.
As part of his sad-sack routine, Johnny gives a lottery ticket to Juana, a Mexican prostitute, and Juana retrieves him a little while later when it turns out that the ticket was a winner. She wants to establish a brothel/hotel catering primarily to Americans, and she figures Johnny could help. (Johnny is at his best when he's scheming, so his mini-speech on how to run a brothel while conning American businessmen into thinking they're having no-strings-attached hook-ups instead of paying for it is as genuinely likable as he gets in the entire novel.) Unfortunately, Johnny is the worst human being alive, so instead of helping Juana, he proceeds to effectively devote the rest of the book to ruining her life.
Essentially, reading Serenade is like the experience of having someone with excellent hardboiled noir instincts and prose and a slightly unfortunate opera fixation relay to you the fever dream they had about their gay panic and their bad trip to Mexico. It's like the inverse of the old "baby with the bathwater" idea: here, it's the bathwater (the writing, the intensity) that would be worth keeping if only you could throw out the babies (i.e., everything the novel is actually about). There are moments that suggest that Cain is in control of his material instead of the other way around--after Johnny --but then mere pages later, the doomy force of his tropes overwhelms his logic, and someone's nipples are getting smeared with iguana soup.
When the novel is at its best, the tension between logic and high-octane fatalism is embodied in the characters themselves. Johnny is repeatedly begged to leave Juana alone because he's going to get her killed, but he can't--ostensibly because he loves her too much to do anything as trivial as actually saving her life by staying away from her, but more accurately because he's convinced his heterosexuality depends upon having her within reach. That could actually be the recipe for a really excellent noir, so this novel is blighted not so much by Johnny's awfulness as by two deeply flawed building-block assumptions: Juana's love for Johnny and the reason Johnny lost his voice. These no longer ring true to even the most basic understanding of human nature, if they ever did. Noir depends upon our recognition of how human greed, weakness, anger, and lust really are; when the characters fail the test of seeming to work by the rules of human nature or even human biology, something crucial is lost.
So why four stars? Because, ultimately, at least past the "guy complaining to you about his life" opening section, this novel had a hypnotic pull, with great atmosphere, an unusual plot, and Cain's trademark intensity and fatalism. Even the off-the-wall aspects give it an intriguing individuality--it's like a much better-executed version of the movie The Room, where it's so obviously the product of one person's bizarre mind that some of the flaws seem almost beside the point--but that's a view I have the luxury of assuming only from the vantage point of 2016, where surely no one is under the impression that I can't emphasize enough that those flaws are considerable and even vicious. It's in no way a must-read--it's not even a must-read of James M. Cain's novels--but it is a bizarrely interesting one, and it's especially fun to do a run-down of the plot to your friends and watch their faces fill with baffled horror.
September 27, 2013
James M. Cain whose earliest ambition was to a professional singer takes full advantage of his passion for and knowledge of the art of singing to wind a story of passion, terrible justice, absurd hubris, and star-crossed love across several countries. His protagonist/surrogate is an opera singer trained in France and Italy, his inadvertent femme fatale a Mexican prostitute, together they flee a violent encounter in Mexico to America where his success brings skeletons out of closets and sets them on a horrible Cain-ian downward spiral to disaster and despair.
As the first Cain I've read that I hadn't already seen adapted by Hollywood Serenade marks the point in my reading of the man who at his peak was compared favourably to Hemingway at which I realise just how good the man was at what he did. He gives you a doomed hero like nobody else does, he sets you to knowing from the start that things won't end well but still he weaves a tale with such skill and takes the plot in directions you couldn't possibly anticipate that you start to wonder if just maybe you were wrong and that this time there will be unicorns and flowers and long walks on the beach come the denouement.
Johnny is not a nice person and it would take a very kind hearted person to say that he doesn't deserve what he has coming by the end, he's driven by hubris and desire for Juana. In true noir terms Juana, as the woman who leads the weak willed man to his doom, can be called a femme fatale but the way Cain frames the story is a work of art and the way he flips the roles of male and female characters by the end deserves special praise, especially as you spend a lot of the novel disliking the protagonist. The catharsis this simple yet complex act provides enhances the potentially arbitrary nature of the final chapter exponentially and allows for a mood comparable to his more famous Double Indemnity.
If anybody wants to pay for postage I'm more than happy to send this 2nd reprint Penguin from 1955 to a good home, a small contribution to lowering the weight of my luggage.
As the first Cain I've read that I hadn't already seen adapted by Hollywood Serenade marks the point in my reading of the man who at his peak was compared favourably to Hemingway at which I realise just how good the man was at what he did. He gives you a doomed hero like nobody else does, he sets you to knowing from the start that things won't end well but still he weaves a tale with such skill and takes the plot in directions you couldn't possibly anticipate that you start to wonder if just maybe you were wrong and that this time there will be unicorns and flowers and long walks on the beach come the denouement.
Johnny is not a nice person and it would take a very kind hearted person to say that he doesn't deserve what he has coming by the end, he's driven by hubris and desire for Juana. In true noir terms Juana, as the woman who leads the weak willed man to his doom, can be called a femme fatale but the way Cain frames the story is a work of art and the way he flips the roles of male and female characters by the end deserves special praise, especially as you spend a lot of the novel disliking the protagonist. The catharsis this simple yet complex act provides enhances the potentially arbitrary nature of the final chapter exponentially and allows for a mood comparable to his more famous Double Indemnity.
If anybody wants to pay for postage I'm more than happy to send this 2nd reprint Penguin from 1955 to a good home, a small contribution to lowering the weight of my luggage.
March 13, 2008
The only James M. Cain classic that couldn't be filmed, "Serenade" in short is about a washed-up opera singer in Tijuana who hooks up with a fiery Aztec prostitute who resurrects his singing talent (yeah, right) and they both trek back to Carnegie Hall where the singer's former concertmaster/gay lover stalks him, only to get an Aztec warrior's sword through the heart from the whore.
Strong stuff? Cain wrote it in 1937, which means he's crazier and cooler than all of us. One of the greatest books I've ever read!
Strong stuff? Cain wrote it in 1937, which means he's crazier and cooler than all of us. One of the greatest books I've ever read!
June 15, 2011
I am awarding this a rare 5-star rating.
This is my favorite Cain novel read to date. Absolutely brilliant. Oddly enough, this is the only Cain novel where I cared for the characters. I wanted the guy to get the girl, keep the girl, and live happily ever after. The subtleties given the characters were nuanced and real. And the ending is to die for.
I highly recommend this book. I can't wait to read it again.
This is my favorite Cain novel read to date. Absolutely brilliant. Oddly enough, this is the only Cain novel where I cared for the characters. I wanted the guy to get the girl, keep the girl, and live happily ever after. The subtleties given the characters were nuanced and real. And the ending is to die for.
I highly recommend this book. I can't wait to read it again.
January 25, 2015
Serenade: 2 and 1/2 stars. This one was pretty wacky. I'd never heard of a hard-boiled novel starring an opera singer before. Lots of talk about singing, opera and composers, as well as Mexican prostitues and sex. I give a half star for the author's sheer audacity in writing it.
January 25, 2022
Is this the best book ever or the worst book ever? Yes. Serenade followed Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) and Double Indemnity (1936). Few books could live up to those predecessors and this one doesn't. Hammett had actual experience as a detective, Chandler had a reputation as a writer's writer, and Cain had obsession. But where his first two novels were cut to the bone, every sentence necessary, each word a drop of life's blood, this book drifts, discusses, and dwells. It opens with two pages of racism and sexism, quickly revealing the nature of our first-person narrator. Then it goes over the top with unreined emotion, grand opera, Grand Guignol. The story may not be logical but it makes emotional sense. It was unfilmable in 1937, and still wouldn't be filmed (as is) today (Baz?). It's bat-crap crazy. Much of it is wish fulfillment by the author -- our hero is a movie and musical genius (and the greatest singer ever) who is intuitively knowledgeable about how to make movies and radio shows, much more so than the professionals. His opinions are the final word on anything, especially opera singers. Serenade is all over the place, alternating allegro with adagio, and always teetering on the edge of reality.
September 10, 2021
M. Cain è stata la mia scoperta del 2021. Avevo già letto anni fa Mildred Pierce, ma solo quest'anno ho ripreso tutte le restanti pubblicazioni, inclusa quest'ultima in ordine di lettura.
La prima cosa che attrae in Serenade è la voce, quel meraviglioso, poetico canto che i giallisti americani intonano alla perfezione, esuli nelle terre calde dello stesso continente. Lasciato un inizio che potrebbe sembrare banale, vorticosamente la storia si sviluppa verso trame più sorprendenti e complesse e, seppur non si concludendosi al livello dei testi più celebri, indubbiamente rimane un titolo estremamente interessante da reperire.
È difficile credere che questo romanzo conti la sua prima pubblicazione nel 1937; brillante e capace di avvincere generazioni, rimane in auge con ammaliante fascino attuale.
La prima cosa che attrae in Serenade è la voce, quel meraviglioso, poetico canto che i giallisti americani intonano alla perfezione, esuli nelle terre calde dello stesso continente. Lasciato un inizio che potrebbe sembrare banale, vorticosamente la storia si sviluppa verso trame più sorprendenti e complesse e, seppur non si concludendosi al livello dei testi più celebri, indubbiamente rimane un titolo estremamente interessante da reperire.
È difficile credere che questo romanzo conti la sua prima pubblicazione nel 1937; brillante e capace di avvincere generazioni, rimane in auge con ammaliante fascino attuale.
September 25, 2025
I'm sorry this is hilarious and i can't take it seriously at all. the main plot revolves around how gay men can't sing and how this guy just has to have a female lover to have his voice.
i don't know what Cain was thinking of when writing this but if it was supposed to be an unlikely comedy, it might just work lol.
i don't know what Cain was thinking of when writing this but if it was supposed to be an unlikely comedy, it might just work lol.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 5, 2024
For its time, 1937, Serenade is somewhat explicit and very honest about sexuality. I'd be interested to know how that angle was handled in the 1956 movie adaptation. Serenade came three years after Cain's famous The Postman Always Rings Twice. Its opening scene was pretty much repeated by Marty Robbins in his hit song El Paso. John Sharp, a down-on-his-luck opera singer turned musician meets native Mexican prostitute Juana Montes in Mexico City and they start a fling. Things get more serious, and they hatch a plan to go to Acapulco and open a bordello with Juana as the madam. When Juana tries to involve her parents in the plan, and other complications occur, John decides to cut out and go back to his singing in America. But just as he's about to bolt, he realizes he loves Juana and asks her to come with him. Cormac McCarthy readers will now notice a lot of similarities to the third book of his Border Trilogy, Cities of the Plain.
Cain indulges his apparent love for classical music in Sharp's occupation, thoughts and conversations.
There are different ways to write a book of a given length - lots of action and minimal detail, or vice versa. Here, Cain took the limited action and maximal detail approach. For my money, Serenade doesn't work well as a noir novel. The real drama starts way too late - up until then it's just a ho-hum story. One original angle is that the protagonist in trouble is a famous person - that does throw a new kink into the old noir formulas.
Cain indulges his apparent love for classical music in Sharp's occupation, thoughts and conversations.
There are different ways to write a book of a given length - lots of action and minimal detail, or vice versa. Here, Cain took the limited action and maximal detail approach. For my money, Serenade doesn't work well as a noir novel. The real drama starts way too late - up until then it's just a ho-hum story. One original angle is that the protagonist in trouble is a famous person - that does throw a new kink into the old noir formulas.
June 30, 2023
Nothing is more boring and tedious then an author rattling on their opinions about music. Or how rotten show business is for the truly talented. The protagonist is thoroughly unlikable and impossible to root for. Cain is simply too indulgent with his opinions and gripes here.
November 22, 2022
In a dive in Mexico, we find ourselves in the company of a seemingly carefree guy who is in the process of insinuating himself into the arms of a prostitute. Fairly standard set-up for a writer like Cain. But what we don't and won't know until the novel's last third is that the guy (our unreliable narrator) ain't all that carefree just because he acts it. ~ or he wouldn't have ended up broke and desperate in Mexico.
He scores with the lady rather quickly. The two soon set off on a road trip across rough terrain. There's some bickering, a rather tempestuous, storm-fueled dalliance in an abandoned church... and you would think that some of this kerfuffle would be interesting. But this and more brings us smack to the end of the book's first third... and the trip so far has been surprisingly dull.
The middle of the story is slightly better. Now the two are in love and back in America. With Juana to inspire him, John (our anti-hero) has willed himself to return to his former career as an opera singer. He once again makes that ladder-climb to success; his confidence and his arrogance grow. It's at this point that the novel reaches its zenith in value because back into John's life comes... Winston Hawes! ~ a big, ol' flaming (but classy) gay guy; the one who practically caused John to catapult himself to Mexico in the first place, due to homosexual panic. As John explains:
At any rate, once Winston enters, Cain's book shoots up to a level of hysteria that Hollywood - in 1956 - could never have duplicated. That year a film version of the novel was made, starring Mario Lanza, Joan Fontaine and Vincent Price. Anything in the story bearing a whiff of homosexuality was jettisoned from the script. But what they did do was this: they split Winston into two different characters - one of them a woman (Fontaine) who treats men the way a powerful gay guy might (and who goes after Lanza), and the other one a new character (Price) who (though seemingly not gay) gets to say a lot of witty things (thus, sort of keeping gayness in the story).
It's a rather bad movie. And the book - being largely homophobic in tone (the word 'fag' gets thrown around carelessly; is that the protagonist or the author talking?)- is problematic at best. But Cain gets definite points for turning 'drama queen'. He writes some dizzying stuff. And Winston sure knows how to throw a terrific party! ~ the kind that would make Auntie Mame proud!
He scores with the lady rather quickly. The two soon set off on a road trip across rough terrain. There's some bickering, a rather tempestuous, storm-fueled dalliance in an abandoned church... and you would think that some of this kerfuffle would be interesting. But this and more brings us smack to the end of the book's first third... and the trip so far has been surprisingly dull.
The middle of the story is slightly better. Now the two are in love and back in America. With Juana to inspire him, John (our anti-hero) has willed himself to return to his former career as an opera singer. He once again makes that ladder-climb to success; his confidence and his arrogance grow. It's at this point that the novel reaches its zenith in value because back into John's life comes... Winston Hawes! ~ a big, ol' flaming (but classy) gay guy; the one who practically caused John to catapult himself to Mexico in the first place, due to homosexual panic. As John explains:
"Every man has got five per cent of that in him, if he meets the one person that'll bring it out, and I did, that's all."(John speaks too soon. He may at least be a ten per-center, cause later in the story there's this baseball player he takes a shine to.)
At any rate, once Winston enters, Cain's book shoots up to a level of hysteria that Hollywood - in 1956 - could never have duplicated. That year a film version of the novel was made, starring Mario Lanza, Joan Fontaine and Vincent Price. Anything in the story bearing a whiff of homosexuality was jettisoned from the script. But what they did do was this: they split Winston into two different characters - one of them a woman (Fontaine) who treats men the way a powerful gay guy might (and who goes after Lanza), and the other one a new character (Price) who (though seemingly not gay) gets to say a lot of witty things (thus, sort of keeping gayness in the story).
It's a rather bad movie. And the book - being largely homophobic in tone (the word 'fag' gets thrown around carelessly; is that the protagonist or the author talking?)- is problematic at best. But Cain gets definite points for turning 'drama queen'. He writes some dizzying stuff. And Winston sure knows how to throw a terrific party! ~ the kind that would make Auntie Mame proud!
July 6, 2011
A former roommate left behind an antique, water-damaged collection of three of Cain's novels. I recently stumbled on it, and having seen movie versions of two of the three novels, I opted to read "Serenade," the movie version of which (starring Mario Lanza) I haven't seen. (The movie apparently bears little relation to the novel.) I've now perused a few, in my view, PC takes on "Serenade," but I can't agree with them. This is pulp, and the attitudes in the book, however offensive, not only strike me as rooted in character but as reflective of 1937, when "Serenade" was published. As pulp goes, it's not bad, particularly once the action shifts from Mexico to Hollywood and New York. I much prefer this book to the Jim Thompson novels I've read. ("I'm Lou Ford. There's a killer inside me, but I've also got a ridiculously high IQ. Here, I'll prove it by beating my girlfriend to death while doing fancy arithmetic in my head. Let's see here: 5(-3x - 2) - (x - 3) = -4(4x + 5) + 13. Boy, this is fun. I love violence almost as much as I love having a high IQ.") The next time I have a hankering for pulp (and I don't have it often), I'll have to reach for Cain and give Thompson a pass. Indeed, there's a copy of "Savage Night" on my table that's been sitting there for over a year, but I just can't bring myself to pick it up.
December 23, 2015
Serenade, first published in 1937, is hands down one of the best novels I've read this year, and I never wanted it to end. Great plot, great characters, and superb writing all combine to create a truly memorable book that I unhesitatingly recommend. Also, I am mystified that nobody has endeavored to make a film adaptation of this novel, as I think it would do really well on the big screen. I also have to wonder if Cormac McCarthy didn't get some of his inspiration for his "Border" trilogy from James M. Cain and particularly from his wonderful novel, Serenade.
As an aside, I find it interesting that the readers on this site are fairly evenly split on this novel with about half of the readers really liking the book, while the other half generally didn't care for it all. This novel deals with some tough issues, to be sure, which were written about from Cain's late-1930s perspective and context. Issues of race, gender and sexuality are certainly viewed through a different colored prism today.
Serenade get a solid 4.5 stars of 5 from me.
As an aside, I find it interesting that the readers on this site are fairly evenly split on this novel with about half of the readers really liking the book, while the other half generally didn't care for it all. This novel deals with some tough issues, to be sure, which were written about from Cain's late-1930s perspective and context. Issues of race, gender and sexuality are certainly viewed through a different colored prism today.
Serenade get a solid 4.5 stars of 5 from me.
February 13, 2025
Hasta donde leí (pág. 70 y pico), el protagonista es un estadounidense cantante de ópera venido a menos, que se encuentra literalmente en la lona, varado en Ciudad de México. El tipo se enamora de una prostituta en un bar de mala muerte. Por cosas que no vienen al caso explicar, el protagonista le regala a la chica un billete de lotería y ganan el premio. ¿Qué planean hacer con la guita? Poner una suerte de hotel-prostíbulo en Acapulco. Emprenden viaje.
Las descripciones del D.F. (y de México en general) son sórdidas y decadentes. El protagonista es desagradablemente racista, elitista y misógino, un cínico infumable. Lo único bueno es que Cain escribe bien, la prosa es frenética y despiadada, no da respiro. Pero me terminó cansando, demasiado hard-boiled para mi gusto.
Las descripciones del D.F. (y de México en general) son sórdidas y decadentes. El protagonista es desagradablemente racista, elitista y misógino, un cínico infumable. Lo único bueno es que Cain escribe bien, la prosa es frenética y despiadada, no da respiro. Pero me terminó cansando, demasiado hard-boiled para mi gusto.
February 13, 2021
Not very much interested in opera or singing but this was another pitch black noir from the master of crime.
4/5
Recommended
4/5
Recommended
April 13, 2019
A Cain non interessava il politicamente corretto. Anche in Serenata, come in altri suoi noir, il lettore è portato a parteggiare per il “cattivo” di turno. Un libro che mette in luce tanti aspetti scomodi, con un’interessante ambientazione tra Messico e mondo della lirica.
Coincidenza curiosa: quando ho iniziato a leggere questo romanzo non sapevo che la Serenata del titolo fosse quella del Don Giovanni, di cui proprio in questi giorni sto leggendo varie versioni.
Coincidenza curiosa: quando ho iniziato a leggere questo romanzo non sapevo che la Serenata del titolo fosse quella del Don Giovanni, di cui proprio in questi giorni sto leggendo varie versioni.
August 31, 2010
Bought in Provincetown, MA Aug. 16, 2010 to read on the ferry.
--
The narrator is a sexist, racist, arrogant, homophobic tough guy. The whole book follows his implausible adventures after he hooks up with a Mexican prostitute, who falls in love with him after he rapes her. (You know how women are.) Then he gets in an altercation with the police, so, on the lam from the law, he escapes on a boat to California (illegal girlfriend in tow), where he accidentally becomes a film star. Then, when he wants to get out of his contract so he can go sing at the Met, he finds himself strangely indebted to his former business partner...who may also be his ex-(gay)lover. I wasn't actually sure if this was a man he had had a physical relationship with, or if he had realized later that what he had felt for this man was romantic love. Anyway, tension forms between the girlfriend and this producer, ex-boyfriend character, and tragedy ensues.
This book was just all over the place and in the end, I wasn't sure if it was anti-gay and bigoted as it seemed, or if the overt bigotry of the main character was all some kind of ironic commentary. The tone was a little hard to take at first, then I resigned myself to it as a period sort of thing that had to be taken on its own terms. Then, I was actually pretty impressed with the homosexuality in the book, which was handled in a way that seemed positively broad-minded after the way the Mexicans and women in general were treated. I don't know if I would agree that "all men are 5% gay" but I do sort of agree that people can be attracted to anyone under the right circumstances. But I'm not sure what that has to do with the story, or what the author is saying or assuming about homosexuality with this story. The guy he had been in love with is killed by the girlfriend. Supposedly this had been the one guy in the world that was able to "bring out that part" of him, the one guy to access his 5% gayness...so does that mean the hero is "cured" of his homosexuality? Of course the Mexican chick is dead by the end too, so what does that mean? I'm baffled, but overall, kind of impressed with how many issues and stereotypes this book takes on.
--
The narrator is a sexist, racist, arrogant, homophobic tough guy. The whole book follows his implausible adventures after he hooks up with a Mexican prostitute, who falls in love with him after he rapes her. (You know how women are.) Then he gets in an altercation with the police, so, on the lam from the law, he escapes on a boat to California (illegal girlfriend in tow), where he accidentally becomes a film star. Then, when he wants to get out of his contract so he can go sing at the Met, he finds himself strangely indebted to his former business partner...who may also be his ex-(gay)lover. I wasn't actually sure if this was a man he had had a physical relationship with, or if he had realized later that what he had felt for this man was romantic love. Anyway, tension forms between the girlfriend and this producer, ex-boyfriend character, and tragedy ensues.
This book was just all over the place and in the end, I wasn't sure if it was anti-gay and bigoted as it seemed, or if the overt bigotry of the main character was all some kind of ironic commentary. The tone was a little hard to take at first, then I resigned myself to it as a period sort of thing that had to be taken on its own terms. Then, I was actually pretty impressed with the homosexuality in the book, which was handled in a way that seemed positively broad-minded after the way the Mexicans and women in general were treated. I don't know if I would agree that "all men are 5% gay" but I do sort of agree that people can be attracted to anyone under the right circumstances. But I'm not sure what that has to do with the story, or what the author is saying or assuming about homosexuality with this story. The guy he had been in love with is killed by the girlfriend. Supposedly this had been the one guy in the world that was able to "bring out that part" of him, the one guy to access his 5% gayness...so does that mean the hero is "cured" of his homosexuality? Of course the Mexican chick is dead by the end too, so what does that mean? I'm baffled, but overall, kind of impressed with how many issues and stereotypes this book takes on.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2010
The following review contains spoilers . . . if you do not want to know the general contours of Serenade's plot, read no further . . . Opera singer John Howard Sharp is a self-loathing homosexual who wants to believe he is like any other man. At one point he protests that all men are 5% gay but that most men are fortunate enough not to meet that special someone who triggers that 5%. Unfortunately for John, he has met that special someone, and it turns out that homosexual activity has the little-known side effect of ruining a man's ability to sing. Therefore, John takes drastic measures, raping his way back into the world of heterosexuality and thereby reclaiming his singing voice. When his rape victim falls in love with him, all seems right with his world, until his gay ex-lover turns out to be an effete but vengeful predator. A regrettable novel in many ways . . . worth reading only as a period piece.
July 29, 2016
An awful book that is well written is still an awful book. I picked up Serenade after being impressed by The Post Man Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce. Noir of the '30s and '40s, unfortunately, conveyed racism as acceptable and literature worthy. Sometimes it achieves a gritty and edgy flavor, but Serenade quickly becomes an annoying rant about everything Mexican. I do admit some of Cain's factoids about Mexicans made me laugh: "Luckily, we all know Mexicans can hardly read." *Check myself, yup still Mexican and reading this.*
The front cover proudly states, "No one has ever stopped in the middle of one of Jim Cain's books." Challenge accepted and accomplished.
The front cover proudly states, "No one has ever stopped in the middle of one of Jim Cain's books." Challenge accepted and accomplished.
August 1, 2017
This is a little bizarre. The first 50 pages is somewhat along the lines of Steinbeck's The Pearl and I enjoyed it fine. Then for about 100 pages it was concerned with the intricacies of the protagonist's singing career, most of which I found dull. Then the plot sprang to life quite forcefully in the last 50 pages and I was intrigued again. What I'm trying to say is that there seems to be two stories wedged into one here, and only one of them is interesting.
December 5, 2013
This might well be the most underrated book in 20th Century American Literature. Serenade is a pyrotechnic and operatic page turner that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let you go until the last sentence. And even then, it doesn't let you go: the way-ahead-of-its-time carnal sexuality shocking you long after you've put it back on the shelf..or have forced it on some unsuspecting friends.
July 13, 2011
Pushes toward five stars, but not recently-read enough for full review. Stands out from even the above-average run of pulp & noir as a unique conception, a weird remix of the standard elements, very intriguing.
January 26, 2018
[This review contains thematic spoilers.] James M. Cain's SERENADE is a 219-page trigger warning. There is not one page of this that you can read aloud on a crowded sidewalk without expecting to be punched.
As a card-carrying member of the gay community, I looked forward to reading a novel this old about a character trying to escape his gay past. It was published in 1937. Most fiction which even dealt with gay themes then was coded, and a lot of it was packaged so that censors would be met halfway with offerings of negative stereotypes. This allowed authors to say, "I'm not condoning the behavior, I'm just describing it." When I read anything from the mid-20th-century, I brace myself for racism, antisemitism, sexism and homophobia. Then I gauge whether these elements are reflexive on the part of the author, rote, subconscious or even nonexistent. It is almost never nonexistent. It is rarely vicious, but almost invariably unfortunate.
Class, brace yourselves. From Chapter 4: "Yes, it was rape, but only technical, brother, only technical." This isn't just a character saying this. It's a first-person narrator. I am not saying the author is saying it. But, as with a lot of fiction of that era, it is very hard to say what Cain thinks of this attitude. He definitely wants to shock the reader. But shock is a legitimate artistic tool, and, reading the whole book, the overall impression I have is that Cain wanted to show that society does choose to crush the weak. He does not approve of that. Even in its most lurid scene, the weeping of an onlooker is a grace note.
At one point, a detective, talking to a Hollywood actor, merely says, "Hays code?" If you know about the time, you'll know that the detective is raising the possibility of blackmail. Cain, in 1937, doesn't even bother expanding on this. His dark hint here is that the gay thing might get out, as it were, and compromise the detective's client.
Much of the book is set in Mexico during a brutally oppressive socialist experiment. A year after Cain's novel, Graham Greene started writing a novel about a priest traversing Mexico in an attempt to elude anti-celerical authorities. Greene approaches Conradian levels in THE POWER AND THE GLORY, but Cain, putting this much further in the background, nevertheless makes note of the firing squads Greene would put in the foreground. The part of SERENADE set in the US focuses at some length on an attempt to have an illegal alien (the narrator's heterosexual love interest) deported. As dated as this novel is, its treatment of the dilemma of an illegal alien resonates today.
Cain's masterpiece, MILDRED PIERCE, published five years after SERENADE, is a far more disciplined work. His near-feminism is clear in that book. (I say "near-feminism" because I don't he's political. He addresses the unfairness of the world. He's not in bad company there. Dickens did the same.) SERENADE is fuzzy. My feeling is it would have worked better as a short story.
One part is intriguing. The main character winds up in Hollywood and is lobbying for the inclusion of a song. He suggests recording his voice in layers so he can harmonize with himself. Cain's enthusiasm for such a technical wonder is obvious. If his narrator had decided to become a recording engineer instead of an opera singer, he wouldn't have been stuck trying get out of Hollywood contract. Yes, this is a book about about an opera singer who rejects the millions of dollars his singing-cowboy role is getting him so he can sing at the Met.
Anything else I tell you would be a spoiler, though. Read SERENADE, bearing in mind that its publication was simultaneously daring and retrograde. In short, it is quite dated.
But Cain is, in many ways, honest, and he knows how people set traps for themselves. In the long run, SERENADE is a good book.
Besides, there's sex in a church. In an anti-clerical country. Think of it this way, SERENADE anticipates both EASY RIDER and THE BOYS IN THE BAND.
As a card-carrying member of the gay community, I looked forward to reading a novel this old about a character trying to escape his gay past. It was published in 1937. Most fiction which even dealt with gay themes then was coded, and a lot of it was packaged so that censors would be met halfway with offerings of negative stereotypes. This allowed authors to say, "I'm not condoning the behavior, I'm just describing it." When I read anything from the mid-20th-century, I brace myself for racism, antisemitism, sexism and homophobia. Then I gauge whether these elements are reflexive on the part of the author, rote, subconscious or even nonexistent. It is almost never nonexistent. It is rarely vicious, but almost invariably unfortunate.
Class, brace yourselves. From Chapter 4: "Yes, it was rape, but only technical, brother, only technical." This isn't just a character saying this. It's a first-person narrator. I am not saying the author is saying it. But, as with a lot of fiction of that era, it is very hard to say what Cain thinks of this attitude. He definitely wants to shock the reader. But shock is a legitimate artistic tool, and, reading the whole book, the overall impression I have is that Cain wanted to show that society does choose to crush the weak. He does not approve of that. Even in its most lurid scene, the weeping of an onlooker is a grace note.
At one point, a detective, talking to a Hollywood actor, merely says, "Hays code?" If you know about the time, you'll know that the detective is raising the possibility of blackmail. Cain, in 1937, doesn't even bother expanding on this. His dark hint here is that the gay thing might get out, as it were, and compromise the detective's client.
Much of the book is set in Mexico during a brutally oppressive socialist experiment. A year after Cain's novel, Graham Greene started writing a novel about a priest traversing Mexico in an attempt to elude anti-celerical authorities. Greene approaches Conradian levels in THE POWER AND THE GLORY, but Cain, putting this much further in the background, nevertheless makes note of the firing squads Greene would put in the foreground. The part of SERENADE set in the US focuses at some length on an attempt to have an illegal alien (the narrator's heterosexual love interest) deported. As dated as this novel is, its treatment of the dilemma of an illegal alien resonates today.
Cain's masterpiece, MILDRED PIERCE, published five years after SERENADE, is a far more disciplined work. His near-feminism is clear in that book. (I say "near-feminism" because I don't he's political. He addresses the unfairness of the world. He's not in bad company there. Dickens did the same.) SERENADE is fuzzy. My feeling is it would have worked better as a short story.
One part is intriguing. The main character winds up in Hollywood and is lobbying for the inclusion of a song. He suggests recording his voice in layers so he can harmonize with himself. Cain's enthusiasm for such a technical wonder is obvious. If his narrator had decided to become a recording engineer instead of an opera singer, he wouldn't have been stuck trying get out of Hollywood contract. Yes, this is a book about about an opera singer who rejects the millions of dollars his singing-cowboy role is getting him so he can sing at the Met.
Anything else I tell you would be a spoiler, though. Read SERENADE, bearing in mind that its publication was simultaneously daring and retrograde. In short, it is quite dated.
But Cain is, in many ways, honest, and he knows how people set traps for themselves. In the long run, SERENADE is a good book.
Besides, there's sex in a church. In an anti-clerical country. Think of it this way, SERENADE anticipates both EASY RIDER and THE BOYS IN THE BAND.
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