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James M. Cain

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Born: June 30 1892

Died: 2626 10 19771977

James Mallahan Cain was an American journalist and novelist. Although Cain himself vehemently opposed labeling, he is usually associated with the hard-boiled school of American crime fiction and seen as one of the creators of the "roman noir."

He was born into an Irish Catholic family in Annapolis, Maryland, the son of a prominent educator and an opera singer. He inherited his love for music from his mother, but his high hopes of starting a career as a singer himself were thwarted when she told him that his voice was not good enough.

After graduating from Washington College where his father, James W. Cain served as president, in 1910, he began working as a journalist for The Baltimore Sun.

He was drafted into the United States Army and spent the final year of World War I in France writing for an Army magazine. On his return to the United States he continued working as a journalist, writing editorials for the New York World and articles for American Mercury. He also served briefly as the managing editor of The New Yorker, but later turned to screenplays and finally to fiction.

Although Cain spent many years in Hollywood working on screenplays, his name only appears on the credits of three films, Algiers, Stand Up and Fight, and Gypsy Wildcat.

His first novel , The Postman Always Rings Twice was published in 1934. Two years later the serialized, in Liberty Magazine, Double Indemnity was published.

He made use of his love of music and of the opera in particular in at least three of his novels: Serenade , Mildred Pierce and Career in C Major .

He continued writing up to his death at the age of 85. His last three published works, The Baby in the Icebox , Cloud Nine and The Enchanted Isle being published posthumously. However, the many novels he published from the late 1940s onward never quite rivaled his earlier successes.

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James M. Cain

James M. Cain

Books from James M. Cain

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Double Indemnity

Mildred Pierce

The Cocktail Waitress

Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s

Serenade

The Butterfly

The Baby in the Icebox and Other Short Fiction

Three by Cain: Serenade/Love's Lovely Counterfeit/The Butterfly

Love's Lovely Counterfeit

The Postman Always Rings Twice/Double Indemnity

Antología del relato policial

Three of a Kind

Jealous Woman

The Butterfly

The Picador Book Of Crime Writing

La falena

Cuentos policiales de la serie negra

Masterpieces of Suspense

La muchacha de la tormenta y otros relatos bajo sospecha