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The Cocktail Waitress
Written by James Cain
Narrated by Amy Rubinate
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Grieving widow or black widow?
The day Joan Medford buried her husband was a fateful one-because before the day was out she'd meet the two men who would change her life forever. Forced to take a job waitressing to support herself and her child, Joan finds herself caught between the handsome young schemer whose touch she comes to crave and the wealthy older man whose touch repels her…but who otherwise would make a tempting husband number two. It's a classic Cain triangle -brutal and sexual and stark-that can only end in death. But for whom, the guilty…or the innocent?
The final novel written by James M. Cain and never before published, The Cocktail Waitress is a testament to the enduring power of one of the most acclaimed novelists of the twentieth century. The author of unforgettable noir classics such as Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cain's work remains as impossible to put down today as when first written, and will leave even jaded modern readers breathless.
Book Actions
Start ListeningBook Information
The Cocktail Waitress
Written by James Cain
Narrated by Amy Rubinate
Description
Grieving widow or black widow?
The day Joan Medford buried her husband was a fateful one-because before the day was out she'd meet the two men who would change her life forever. Forced to take a job waitressing to support herself and her child, Joan finds herself caught between the handsome young schemer whose touch she comes to crave and the wealthy older man whose touch repels her…but who otherwise would make a tempting husband number two. It's a classic Cain triangle -brutal and sexual and stark-that can only end in death. But for whom, the guilty…or the innocent?
The final novel written by James M. Cain and never before published, The Cocktail Waitress is a testament to the enduring power of one of the most acclaimed novelists of the twentieth century. The author of unforgettable noir classics such as Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cain's work remains as impossible to put down today as when first written, and will leave even jaded modern readers breathless.
About the author
Reviews
There is something about Cain's writing which makes you not want to put it down until you finish it. It is, of course, another tale of greed,love, betrayal, despair. It continues many of the same themes as Postman and Double Indemnity. It is
interestingly narrated through a woman's point of view and Cain pulls that off very successfully. She is a femme fatale or is she? As Editor Ardai notes in an afterword, there is a tension in the book because you have to decide if the narrator is reporting the events accurately.
Joan Medford got married at seventeen after finding herself pregnant. He turned out to be a louse, a drunk, a loser who couldn't pay his bills, and somewhat of a wifebeater. At his funeral, there are not-so-veiled references from the husband's family that Joan arranged for the
husband's death. With the house on the verge of foreclosure, Joan takes a job down the street as a cocktail waitress, wearing the skimpiest outfit imaginable and showing her assets. She meets a rich
old man who she can barely stomach the idea of touching but who is madly in love with her and a young man who is involved with plans and schemes, but who drives her wild.
The book takes the reader through Joan's journey as she navigates between these two men and the suspicious young policeman who thinks she offed her husband. It is a great read. Cain has a way of developing his characters that really gives them depth.
Highly recommend this book for fans of old fashioned noir fiction of Cain or Woolrich.
Rating: 5interestingly narrated through a woman's point of view and Cain pulls that off very successfully. She is a femme fatale or is she? As Editor Ardai notes in an afterword, there is a tension in the book because you have to decide if the narrator is reporting the events accurately.
Joan Medford got married at seventeen after finding herself pregnant. He turned out to be a louse, a drunk, a loser who couldn't pay his bills, and somewhat of a wifebeater. At his funeral, there are not-so-veiled references from the husband's family that Joan arranged for the
husband's death. With the house on the verge of foreclosure, Joan takes a job down the street as a cocktail waitress, wearing the skimpiest outfit imaginable and showing her assets. She meets a rich
old man who she can barely stomach the idea of touching but who is madly in love with her and a young man who is involved with plans and schemes, but who drives her wild.
The book takes the reader through Joan's journey as she navigates between these two men and the suspicious young policeman who thinks she offed her husband. It is a great read. Cain has a way of developing his characters that really gives them depth.
Highly recommend this book for fans of old fashioned noir fiction of Cain or Woolrich.
This was a strange noir novel, that I couldn't put down, but I can't say that I really loved it. Is the main character -- Joan -- a gold-digger, a murderer, a nymphomaniac, or just plain lucky? Is it pulp fiction or a lurid carnal story? Probably a bit of both!
Rating: 4I must admit that I didn't get into this one straight away, but by the third chapter it got to me and then I couldn't put it down. Being a bit of a fan of this genre, I'm sorry to say that I had worked it out early in the piece, but I still enjoyed the ride. The story, written in first person, follows the life of recently widowed, hard-done by waitress, Joan. Nasty, amusing, and well worth the read.
Rating: 4James M. Cain is one of the gods of pulp mysteries, standing alongside Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. His The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity are classics. So, when a never-before published manuscript (hinted at during late in life interviews and biographies) surfaces, it's a big thing. And I guess, for that reason alone, The Cocktail Waitress is worth the read.However (and I may be the only one who says this), if you're looking for a pulp mystery on the level of Cain's classics, this book isn't it. Actually, Michael Connelly, in his NY Times Book Review, I think says the same thing.Joan Medford kicks her drunk husband out of the house one night and he crashes a borrowed car on a culvert, leaving her a penniless widow, hated by her sister-in-law and unable to look after her three year old son, Tad. The police are suspicious, thinking she might have helped the process. Mentioning to one of the investigating police officers that she desperately needs a job, he suggests the local bar/restaurant, The Garden of Roses. On his recommendation she gets the job as a cocktail waitress and she meets the old, but well-to-do, Earl K. White III, who immediately falls in love with her. She also meets, the young and handsome Tom, with whom there's a tremendous physical attraction.What does Joan do? White may be the answer to her financial worries and the means to get Tad back from her sister-in-law (who has been caring for him since Joan doesn't have the means). But Tom, certainly, will meet her physical needs.Older man-->younger woman--->younger man is a typical James M. Cain plot, done much better in The Postman Always Rings Twice. I'm not saying there aren't some great passages and surprises along the way, including the ending (which, while, in my opinion sort of follows, is, again in my opinion, uncalled for). But...I've been inundating myself in mystery stories from The Black Mask and I'll be honest. There are better stories than The Cocktail Waitress, but again, any pulp/James M. Cain fan will be compelled to read The Cocktail Waitress. It won't be the death of you, but it certainly won't keep you riveted.
Rating: 4As a Cain novel it is exactly what you should expect. The afterward is an unexpected treat, talking about the circumstances that lead to the novel's delayed publication and giving examples of the editorial difficulty in producing a work without any input from the original author.
Rating: 4I read Cain books back in the 70s and remember them being really good noir tales. The Cocktail Waitress published from drafts by Cain after his death was just okay. It did have a slightly different ending than I suspected, but overall, you could pretty much figure out where the story was going.
Rating: 4This is one nasty book. Not so much for the content, but for the way Cain messes with the reader.
You get the waitress telling you a story about hard times, death and money. You feel for her. Then, it dawns on you--she is a typical Cain woman, tough and clawing her way through men.
Cain’s final note laced with Thalidomide lets you in on what he really thinks of her. Maybe all women. Cain was one nasty guy.
Finally, this book is a posthumous construction from many drafts. It feels it. The editor put together a book, but one you wish Cain lived a little longer to finish.
Rating: 3You get the waitress telling you a story about hard times, death and money. You feel for her. Then, it dawns on you--she is a typical Cain woman, tough and clawing her way through men.
Cain’s final note laced with Thalidomide lets you in on what he really thinks of her. Maybe all women. Cain was one nasty guy.
Finally, this book is a posthumous construction from many drafts. It feels it. The editor put together a book, but one you wish Cain lived a little longer to finish.
James M. Cain’s final novel was rediscovered and constructed by Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai from multiple manuscripts and found notes and is published as the 109th volume from the marvellous Hard Case Crime imprint. The story is set in the early 1960s and opens with the beautiful widow Joan Medford burying her husband who was killed in a drunken car crash. The police are suspicious of the death but can find no evidence of wrong doing. Joan is left broke with a young son to raise and is forced to take a job as a cocktail waitress. Through her new job Joan meets two men at the bar: the young and handsome, but broke entrepreneur, Tom Barclay and the older, sickly and very rich Earl K. White III. Both men begin different forms of relationships with Joan, with deadly repercussions for both. There are a range of hugely interesting elements in "The Cocktail Waitress" including the double-meaning of the title of the book – you have to read to virtually the last page to discover that these three words don't actually mean what you think they mean. Cain structures the book as a taped statement narrated by Joan and is therefore very much the events seem from her point of view. This opens the possibility of her statement being self-justification on her part and not actually a truthful narration of events. The book is unusual therefore as giving voice to the femme fatale of the piece and allowing her to put her own spin on things. Is the story presented here the "truth" or Joan's distorted version of it? Cain never lets us in on it, but the same story written from the perspectives of Tom, Earl or the police would be hugely interesting. Cain's writing is elegant and stately, moving the plot forward at all times, but also building layer upon layer of character detail. The story doesn't play out in the normal rapid fire hard-boiled style but instead meanders slightly on occasions. There are a few elements of the plot that are just a touch too contrived for comfort, but this may be as a result of Joan's self-justifying narrative. The book ends with a devastating gut punch of a twist which led the New York Times to state: "...Cain saves his best twist for the very last page of his very last book". That Cain, at the end of a long career was able to conjure up such a painful, gut-wrenching twist is testament to both his boldness and his power as a writer. It is also a brilliant summation of a career that through his work always understood that there will be consequences; there will always be consequences. With "The Cocktail Waitress" Cain has the confidence to take us all the way to the very final lines of the book to outline exactly how devastating these consequences will be for Joan Medford. The book also contains a hugely interesting afterword by Charles Ardai that makes the case for Charles M. Cain's lofty position amongst the greats of noir fiction. It also outlines the process for tracking down the "The Cocktail Waitress", which was long thought to be a lost book and even more interestingly the process for putting the story together from Cain's many different manuscripts, revisions, alterations and notes. This afterword is a decent detective story in its own right.
Rating: 4