Author: James Mallahan Cain
Translator: Man-shik Lee
Publisher: Minumsa
181 pages | 226*130mm
| Important! Please read before you order! |
| >>>This book is written in Korean. |
About This Book
It is sometimes easy to trace a literary genre to its source, and James
M. Cain's first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, is the noir novel
that paved the way for all the noir fiction that followed. The famous
film starring Lana Turner and John Garfield is notoriously dark, but the
novel is even more full of despair and devoid of hope. It is a short
book--little more than a novella--but its searing characterization and
depiction of tawdry greed and lust is branded into every reader's
memory.
Frank Chambers, a drifter, is dropped from the back of a truck at a
rundown rural diner. When he spots Cora, the owner's wife, he instantly
decides to stay. The sexy young woman, married to Nick, a violent and
thuggish boor, is equally attracted to the younger man and sees him as
her way out of her hopeless, boring life. They begin a clandestine
affair and plot to kill Nick, beginning their own journey toward
destruction.
Horace McCoy, David Goodis, Jim Thompson, and the other notable noir
writers never achieved Cain's spare brilliance. Virtually all of his
major works have been filmed, though several Hollywood studios refused
to make the films, directors refused to be involved, and actors turned
down roles because of their repugnance at the lack of morality inherent
in all Cain's characters. Reading him may not be fit for a Sunday school
class, but once you begin you will be unable to resist continuing, like
picking at a painful scab or watching a tarantula inside a glass dome.
--Otto Penzler
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