Reading Cain!

As unexpectedly as a sneeze, I got off on a tangent of reading James M. Cain novels. I paged through The Postman Always Rings Twice for the nth time, then sat down and devoured Double Indemnity. Now I'm working on Mildred Pierce.

I often have this vision of 20th century literary giants like Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Steinbeck duking it out for the top spot. For many years, I just assumed it was Hemingway. (Part of my misspent youth was misspent with journalists!) After a while, I said to myself: No, it's Fitzgerald. Then I re-read some Steinbeck and said: Yes, it's definitely him.

Maybe there's a dark horse candidate, though, and it's James M. Cain.