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The Cocktail Waitress
Written by James Cain
Narrated by Amy Rubinate
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Start Listening- Publisher:
- HarperAudio
- Released:
- Sep 18, 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780062193940
- Format:
- Audiobook
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.
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.
- Publisher:
- HarperAudio
- Released:
- Sep 18, 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780062193940
- Format:
- Audiobook
About the author
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Reviews
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.
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.