The Butterfly

by James M. Cain

Jesse Tyler vit seul dans la montagne. Sa femme l'a quitté avec ses enfants. Un soir, il découvre devant sa porte une jeune femme qui le provoque de façon sensuelle avant d'avouer être sa fille Kady. Elle s'installe chez lui et l'incite à fabriquer de l'alcool clandestinement. Au bout de quelques semaines, le vieux bigot solitaire a bien du mal à contenir ses sentiments dans les limites admises par la morale.

Comme dans Le Facteur sonne toujours deux fois, le sexe joue ici un rôle moteur. Avec une rare perversité, James Cain aborde le thème de l'inceste en mettant face à face un père et sa fille présumée, une jolie femme qui l'attire physiquement. En toile de fond de cette histoire familiale aux rebondissements multiples, le romancier dépeint sans concession le monde fruste des pauvres "petits Blancs" américains. --Claude Mesplède

Genres: Fiction, Noir, Mystery, Crime, 20th Century, Thriller, American

148 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

James 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.

Reviews

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never having read James M. Cain is like never having tasted a caramelo-filled churro. Both Delicious and Morally Wrong... the dessert not the novel. Desserty. Yup. That's accurate about this master of the noir washed over by human beauty.

Yup, unannointed Cainonites are seriously doin' themselves one huge disservice!!

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Huh. Well, that was quite the hillbilly soap opera. The characters are completely unlikable and the plot is, um … incestuous? Not one of Cain's best, but it's a short read and definitely gets points for originality.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one is a peculiar piece of backwoods incest and hillbilly soap opera written by the godfather of noir, James M. Cain. It's been a long time since Jess Tyler's two-timing wife left him, taking their two young daughters with her. Since then he's been spending most of his time alone on his farm. All that changes when 19-year-old Kady shows up on his doorstep; he realizes she's his daughter and takes her in to live with him. And against all of Jess's Christian upbringing, not only do they start making moonshine up in the dark caves behind his house, but they also start making illicit love back there too (eeek!), which sends him into a tizzy and leads to destruction.

Although I kept reading because it was Cain and I wanted to see how crazy it would get, the writing in this one felt awkward and dated, and everything about the book seemed a bit rushed, as if Cain wrote it as an assignment and was in a hurry to finish it. It was released shortly after the three hugely successful movie adaptations of his novels, so I'd like to think that maybe he was pressured to churn out a new novel and wanted to make some dough. It also came out right around his dark divorce from his wife, so maybe it was written during rocky domestic times, or maybe he was just drunk, or maybe he just plain fucked up. Either way, the book was pretty weird.

It had a cool ending though. And I am happy I read it, just to say I did. For fans and completists of Cain only. There's even a really fascinating and lengthy preface by him in this edition!

[Barry Pierce · Rating 1 out of 5]

James M. Cain wrote a book about a father who falls for his daughter. That's all you need to know. It has a nice final sentence but that doesn't save this trainwreck of a novel. Incest can be done well in fiction but not here.

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

None other than Norman Mailer named The Postman Always Rings Twice as one of the five greatest American novels of the 20th century. Butterfly is not as clever as Postman. In fact, this is a bit of a sleazy incestuous novel from Cain. I am not morally rebuking the writer. This is an entertaining little novel set in the mountains. There is even a pretty good film starring Stacy Keach and Pia Zadora with a score by Ennio Morricone based on this not so famous Cain novel. I picked up a copy of this book from a second hand Mumbai book store.

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 3 out of 5]

Σίγουρα δεν ανήκει στις πιο δυνατές στιγμές του Cain. Εντούτοις, το ταλέντο δεν κρύβεται.

[Philip Fracassi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me synopsize for you so you don't have to bother:

"Hey daughter, I kinda like you."

"Oh Pa, I'm such a slut."

"Hey, that guy stole Ma!"

"I'm gonna kill that sumbitch."

"Coal mine moonshine? Count me in!"

"Oh no, everybody's dead...oh no..."

The End.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I ought to leave this as just "DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT," because it makes me happy, but it's not really a fitting conclusion to my triptych of Cain reviews. (And why have I still not reviewed the superior Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, and The Postman Always Rings Twice? Your guess is as good as mine.)

I'll say, first of all, that a two-star book by Cain is still worth reading, because few writers do the sickening allure of a downward slide to hell better than James M. Cain. And this novel, like Serenade, is compellingly strange--plus, who doesn't want to read grit lit by one of the founding fathers of noir?

The Butterfly is about Jess, an upright (read: self-righteous) man who has lived alone since his wife ran out on him. When a pretty girl turns up one day and asks him for food, Jess finds himself immediately drawn to her by an almost-uncontrollable lust--unfortunately, she's his long-lost daughter, Kady, who is washing up on his doorstep after her own misfortunes. Jess does his best to fight his attraction to her, if we assume a pretty low bar for what his best actually is, but Kady isn't really troubled by such things. When she can't draw him into sex, she settles for drawing him into making and selling moonshine, and for a while, the novel is about the two of them locked in a mutually self-destructive tango of illicit attraction and criminality. Then Cain throws a couple of spanners into the works as Kady's sister shows up with Kady's illegitimate son, recently recovered from their mother's lover, Moke, who'd kidnapped him; the baby's father, Kady's beloved ex-boyfriend Wash, follows along shortly thereafter. The novel loses its tightness but gains a valuable source of drama as the new characters complicate things with their own desires and agendas, relieving the pressure on Jess and Kady in some ways and increasing it in others.

All of this is a pretty good set-up, and the complications develop naturally enough. The huge problem of this book, though, is Jess's motivation: this seems like a gross thing to say, but Cain simply doesn't flesh out Jess's desire for his daughter enough for the huge role it's required to play in the plot. The damaging, damning ferocity of Jess's lust--and arguably his love--is the engine that drives the novel's third act. It's overwhelming enough that Jess proceeds in his final plans with no hesitation or guilt, and for me to really believe that he wouldn't even blink at the destruction he's caused, I have to believe that this feeling is utterly overwhelming to him, and Cain never quite sells it. (I also have to believe that Kady is powerfully attracted to him in return, if less overwhelmingly so, and I don't buy that either, because Jess is about the least attractive man I could think of: stern, judgmental, manipulative, and preachy. But Kady is interesting and believable in other ways, so I'm willing to grade Cain on a curve here.) The ending is great, as is the atmosphere and setting, but Jess is a black hole at the novel's center, and it can never quite escape how much he's dragging it down.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Erskine Caldwell-styled hillbilly mung about a grizzled old poppa fallin' down hard for his lil' Ozark daughter Kady, all budding inta womanhood and fallin' for his rival's son.
They fight like grizzly bar's for Kady's tender touch, leadin' to murder in the coal mine! She has a baby and the only way you can tell who's the paw is a birthmark shaped like a butterfly. Dopey hillbilly books are always a hoot to read.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was interesting, basically a backwoods noir. it's written in first person from the viewpoint of a man living alone near an abandoned mine. He has a little farm and stays away from everyone after his wife ran off years ago. His daughter, who he hasn't seen since she was a baby, comes back in his life out of the blue, bitter at the world. That is when the trouble starts, in that they fall for each other and she leads him down a dark path. At least, that is what he says. He doesn't seem to be a totally reliable narrator.

Recommended, it's an odd little book, but it keeps your interest and is written well.

[tortoise dreams · Rating 3 out of 5]

A farmer meets his long lost daughter and all hell breaks loose. Called "a novel of primitive passion" on the first edition, The Butterfly is a rare and unique example of hillbilly noir, as written by the master of hardboiled fiction. A story of moonshining, coal mining, birthmarks, and incest. Set in the mountains of West Virginia with a convoluted plot and a cast of characters worthy of any soap opera. There are several twists and turns, and though not all are credible Cain is writing what he writes best: obsession, lust, and bad choices. Once again (see Serenade (1937)) he goes over the top, as if he had to outdo his earlier works and shocking readers was the only way to do it (even if it's really shock-lite). Cain incorporates an outré male fantasy of a daughter seducing her father and makes it the center of The Butterfly. The novel was popular when published in 1946 (!), but has since receded in notoriety nowadays as part of the Cain bibliography. The book also includes an intriguing 12-page self-justifying preface that's a must-read. Unfilmable when it was published, The Butterfly was made into a 1982 film with Pia Zadora and Stacy Keach. Random note: Cain's next book, published the following year, was entitled The Moth. [3★]

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - The James Cain Series:
When Jess Tyler's two-timing wife left him he stayed on at the farm alone, growing corn and going to Church. Nearly twenty years later, a young woman turns up with a suitcase, and there's an immediate attraction between them. The problem is that the young woman is Jess's daughter, Kady. Or is she? Only the butterfly birthmark can settle the question for good. A tale of revenge, murder and forbidden love, adapted by Adrian Bean.

[Bettie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03kpkyv

Description: It takes place among the hills and hollers of West Virginia coal country. Cain uses his favorite form of narration, the first person confessional, in relating this unusual tale of deceit, incest and murder.

Jess Tyler is a church going mountain man. One day out of the blue, his estranged daughter, Kady, shows up at his cabin and starts throwing herself at him in a most undaughterly way. At least that's the way Jess tells it. Cain leaves a few hints that Jess may not be 100% accurate as a narrator. For example, he claims to be a God fearing teetotaler. Yet he quickly shows himself to be a seasoned expert when it comes to constructing and operating a commercial still.

When Jess Tyler's two-timing wife left him he stayed on at the farm alone, growing corn and going to Church. Nearly twenty years later, a young woman turns up with a suitcase, and there's an immediate attraction between them. The problem is that the young woman is Jess's daughter, Kady. Or is she? Only the butterfly birthmark can settle the question for good. A tale of revenge, murder and forbidden love, adapted by Adrian Bean.

Jess Tyler John Chancer
Kady Ashleigh Haddad
Wash Solomon Mousley
Moke Blue Jeff Mash
Deputy Martin Sherman

CR The Butterfly
3* Double Indemnity
3* The Postman Always Rings Twice

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5) It's an interesting story. I admire Cain's willingness to go there with the topic he examines. But the lead character isn't compelling enough to make the book itself rise into something competent. This leaves the reader with a mess of ideas and good prose but nothing to tie it all together.

[Stephanie Dargusch Borders · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one doesn’t get moving as fast as Cain’s other books. That, coupled with one of the main themes of the book, incest, guaranteed this book wouldn’t reach the acclaim of his more popular novels. Rightfully so, imo. The pacing picked up in the second half.

[Βρόσγος Άντυ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ένα ιερό τέρας ο συγγραφέας. Όχι από τις καλύτερες δουλειές του, ίσως η έκταση της νουβέλας τον περιορίζει, αλλά γρήγορο, ενδιαφέρον, με λιτους ωραίους διαλόγους, κόφτη πρόζα, σκοτεινή ατμόσφαιρα.
Πιο πολύ κοινωνικό, με λίγο περισσότερο δράμα από όσο έπρεπε αλλά αξίζει της προσοχής σας.

[Daniel Polansky]

Appalachian incest, clan rivalries, moonshining, all the erotic and horrific thrills one would expect in a Cain novel. A good way to burn an hour.

[Jeff Powers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though far from the best this great author wrote during his career, Butterfly is still a rather tight noirish thriller with an unlikely setting. Gone are the urban landscapes of California. This story of weakness and betrayal takes place in the small town, almost Western genre feel, of the eastern mountains. Cain writes deeply flawed broken characters whose only chance at survival is to claw their way through the human refuse around them. The world is painted a deep shade of grey. Filled with the classic pulp taboos that made Cain's books fly off the shelves, The Butterfly is an enjoyable paperback classic of a bygone era, even if it can't stand up to the others works of the genre or its own author.

[Eva D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far as I have read, Nabokov is the only other author that has written about incest. I guess if a father happens to be a writer and cooks up a story about incest, he's in mortal terror he'll be so convincing about it that all the critics will think it's the truth. (Cain and Nabokov had no children, so they're in the clear.)

It's a heavy, messed up topic, but Cain moves through it elegantly. As with most of his novels, this one is written in a confessional format. Would definitely recommend if you're looking for something bleak to read.

[Wanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Daddy want pork daughter. Daughter take advantage. No end well. Duh.

[Guy Salvidge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short, hillybilly noir. It has moonshine, rifles, an abandoned mine and incest that might not be incest. I liked it fine.

[Eden Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Visit JetBlackDragonfly (The Man Who Read Too Much) at www.edenthompson.ca/blog

The Butterfly is a short, explosive novel by James M. Cain, the author of the The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce. Those classics were made into films, as was Butterfly in 1982 starring Pia Zadora with a cast that included Orson Welles, Stacy Keach and June Lockhart. Considered trashy, the film was a notorious flop financed by Pia's husband to make her a star. There is nothing like reading the original, which is filled with more taboo passion than any I've read.

West Virginia farmer Jess Tyler comes home to meet young blonde Kady, nineteen or twenty, and impossible to resist when she is so flirtatious. His desire is tempered only slightly when he discovers she is his long lost daughter, his wife having run off with a guy named Moke when she was a baby. He's ashamed at his passion but still tries to figure out a way he can have her. When he finds out she has a special butterfly birthmark proving that she actually isn't daughter, the floodgates open for their sexual affair. The thing is, the reader and Jess know she is not his daughter, but everyone else thinks she is - their temptation is soaked in incest, and she has no problems sleeping with her 'dad'. They keep it secret and he chases away any chance other men have for her, Jess even convinces her to marry him!
They start a moonshine business out of an abandoned coal mine, her illegitimate baby arrives as does the father and Kady's mother who is dying of consumption, along with Moke returning for a deadly confrontation. All this before the law catches up with Jess and Kady, charging them with incest. It's that kind of hillbilly soap opera, but done in fine style.

There is a lot of story packed into these 144 pages. It's to his credit as a writer that incest and the final downfall of the characters is never done in a cheap or gratuitous way. He has respect for them, their sin and shame, desires and manipulations. Inspired in 1922, and written in 1946, the author describes it as a morality tale.
My edition includes a preface from the author where he writes ironically: "Yes, I have actually mined coal, and distilled liquor, as well as seen a girl in a pink dress, and seen her take it off..." Although considered a minor book of his, I think its intensity more than measures up to his reputation as master of dark desires. Its torrid lust bursts off the page, salacious and forbidden.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

One typically associates the hard-boiled "school" of writing (which James M. Cain disavows in my edition's introduction) with lust, murder, and desperate acts spurred by human frailties. The Butterfly does indeed have all of those elements, but assembled in an unexpected way. Rather than dealing with hardened private eyes investigating (or perhaps instigating) corruption in the big city, this story deals with incest and family feuds in the Appalachian countryside, as the daughter of the protagonist's estranged wife tracks him down and stirs feelings in him that are decidedly not fatherly.

This is the first book I've ever read by Cain (I've seen several movies based on his work, however), and the prose is the highlight. In spite of the somewhat alien setting, characters engage in terse verbal crossfire befitting any noir, and the narration is minimalist and punchy, arriving in its simple but evocative way at the standard theme for this kind of work: shining a light on those dark areas of the human soul we'd usually rather keep hidden. Having encountered a lot of florid prose recently (florid prose is not inherently a detriment, of course), I found Cain's efficient style refreshing. Take, for instance, the following exchange:

"Miss, I think there's a mistake. I think you're looking for somebody else's place, not mine."
"I'm looking for you."
"You've never seen me before, so how do you know?"
"Maybe I saw your picture."
"Maybe you know my name?"
"Sure I know it. You're Jess Tyler."
"...I asked you once, what do you want?"
"I told you once, how can I tell? ...If you invited me in now, and told me to look around a little bit, why then I might pick something out."
"I don't like people making fun."
"Maybe I'm not."

Such crackling energy. Can't you just imagine Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck firing off those lines with machine-gun rapidity? (Stanwyck would have been too old for the part in 1946, but you see what I'm saying.) You almost feel like you're reading a screenplay. (Though Cain takes issue with this assessment of his work in the introduction. Apparently I'm not the only reader who's ever felt that way.)

Stephen King most often cites Richard Matheson as his primary writing influence, but I'd be surprised if James M. Cain didn't have a huge impact as well, at least on King's first-person prose.

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that shows Cain’s writing prowess, and yet is not enjoyable to read.

Narrator Jess Tyler lives by himself on his small farm in a coal town in rural West Virginia whe mining has long since closed down. As Dylan said ‘it’s much cheaper down in the South American towns where the miners work almost for nothing’.

His wife has left him also, when one day he comes home to find a confident nineteen year-old girl sitting on his stoop. Though initially she doesn’t let on, after a while she tells him that she is his daughter, Kady, whom he hasn't seen for many years.


He takes her in without hesitation, though the problem is, she plays Jess sees something different in his grown-up little girl in an entirely new way.

This is Cain in his confessional mode. But his protagonist is going to have to work hard to gain any sympathy from the reader as it seems he is to embark on an incestuous relationship. Cain has twists of course, but Tyler is already tainted. There’s a nasty taste in the mouth after the first few chapters, and the book never really recovers from that.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whenever you set out to read a James M Cain novel, there are a couple of things to bear in mind: His first-person narrator is almost certain to be unreliable; everything is, after all, told by a guy who is a participant in some quite murky events. His own actions are going to be of a highly questionable nature. Second, Cain’s stories are all about human failings, bad choices, questionable motives, deceit, even self-delusion. Nothing here is likely to end well, especially for the protagonist. We may not end up liking the protagonist but we’re morbidly fascinated while observing his twisted career.
In this little train-wreck of a tale, Cain tests the boundaries of acceptable material, venturing into, among other sins, murder, betrayal and incest; risky territory. And it’s set in the hill country of West Virginia, not known as a patrician environment. The characters are suitably crude, unlettered and hard-bitten.
But do not despair of it: there’s enough complexity in this mess to keep you reading to the end. And it certainly does not run in straight lines or end as expected.

[Bill Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The preface to this novel is excellent. Written by Cain himself, he covers many topics regarding this novel, his writing style, other novels, etc. Cain claims he actually worked as a miner and a moonshiner. Well, maybe he has; he uses the word highfalutin in the preface which I have only heard my grandmother use and she lived in WV. The preface is sage advice to any aspiring writer.

The novel is very realistic. It describes West Virginia very well and is full of jargon you only hear in West Virginia. There is no incest here. For most of the novel, Jess lusts after Kady who he thinks is his daughter but she ends up not his daughter The novel is aptly titled The Butterfly and the butterfly plays a significant part in the story.

Cain did a wonderful job creating something dark here but in my opinion it could have been darker but perhaps that would have been unpalatable to any audience back in 1947. The ending is almost upbeat.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love James Cain's books............. right from the first page one is immersed in the book; none of this 4 pages of description but straight into the story. While the book was written in 1946, it's as well written and pertinent as today. The subject matter of incest is still regarded with revulsion (as it should be), there are twists and events of mistaken identity and the story is set in the col-mining country. The raw emotions, fights, secrets, loves and hates typical whenever people are involved. The setting, characters and events remind me of today's stories by Donald Ray Pollock of Chillicothe, OH.

[Hazy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story's alright, but I guess I picked a doozy when it came to the subject matter. Finished in a couple of hours, then had to take a shower.

1. Turns out that, no, Jess was not banging his daughter.
2. Doesn't find that out until page 70 or so, so it's still gross.
3. Daughter and Dad seem perfectly okay with this situation. Ew.
4. Relationship falls apart when Jess tries to reveal that he is not Kady's dad. Ew.

Book would've been better if it was just about making bootleg liquor in the mountains. Well-written, but likely to give you brain scabies.

[Chris Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not one of the most comfortable or pleasant reads. It reeks of ... well, it reeks of something I can't find a name for. And Jess Tyler is a particularly despicable creation, along with many of the other characters (there's a couple of notable exceptions).
If you're reading James M. Cain's novels, you really don't want to be starting with this one. Pick Double Indemnity, Postman, or Mildred Pierce instead.
I give it 3 stars because it's very competently written, as you'd expect from Cain. It's just not very nice, is all.

[Peggy · Rating 2 out of 5]

James Cain wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity and more. This is my first time reading a book of his. I saw the movies of those three books though. Good movies. I was not impressed with this book at all though. Maybe it’s one that I’ll need to chew on for awhile to decide it was good. I just didn’t get pulled into the story or attach to any characters. There was a good twist in it but it just didn’t do anything for me.