Cain, James M.: 1892 - 1977
Information about James M. Cain
- General Information
- Facts
- Full name: James Mallahan Cain
- His mother was an opera singer and his father was a professor, and they both corrected his grammar all the time. In a sort of vengeful way, his books are full of tough-talking characters who make a lot of grammatical mistakes. He worked as a reporter under H.L. Mencken and Walter Lippman, and his novels describe appalling crimes in terse, newspaper-style prose. In France, he was considered one of America's most important writers, and Albert Camus said that The Postman Always Rings Twice was the inspiration for his novel The Stranger. From MPR
- Brief biography read by Jon Cordova. Can be used as listening comprehension exercise.
- TranscriptJames M. Cain was born in Annapolis, Maryland on July 1, 1892. He studied at Washington College, in Chesterton, Maryland and worked as a clerk, a meat-packer, a singer, and a teacher.
During World War I, in army service, he was the editor of an army newspaper in France and after the war he was Professor of Journalism at St. John's College, Annapolis.
From 1932 to 1947 he lived in Southern California writing for films, but he did not have much success as a filmwriter and he drank too much. Then his first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, was published in 1934 and became an instant bestseller.
Cain was very critical of Hollywood's treatment of writers, and he set up the short-lived American Authors' Society to seek better deals with the studios. Many of Cain's novels were turned into movies.
Cain returned to Maryland in 1948, settling in Hyattsville. He was married four times. James M. Cain died on October 27, 1977, in Hyattsville, Maryland.
- Transcript
- Bibliography
- Bibliography with additional information about the books
- Articles
- Remembering James M. Cain: "Cain continued writing up to his death at the age of 85. However, the many novels he published from the late 1940s onward never rivaled his earlier successes." The American Mercury; November 23, 2014
- The Wit, Wisdom, and Noirs of James M. Cain: ""The Postman Always Rings Twice" remains to this day one of the classics of 20th century American literature, and one of the very best exemplars of the power and the potential of crime writing, though Cain would always insist that he didn’t think of his books as crime novels or noirs, but rather as love stories." Crime Reads; July 1, 2019
- An Original Hard-Boiled Crime Novelist: "His stardom would fade by the sixties and he spends his later years in his home state of Maryland where he grew up." Sherry Venegas; November 8, 2023
- Where to Start with James M. Cain. Information about his books: "James M. Cain is one of the founding writers of hard-boiled crime fiction."
- A commercial writer who never really rose above his magazine origins.: "True, often his charters' reactions seem rushed as if the writer's in a hurry to get to the next development."