We’re excited to announce the next PEN Reads book selection: Mildred Pierce, by James M. Cain. Cain (1892–1977), one of the progenitors of noir fiction, was honored with the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America in 1974, a few years before his death. He was known for the rich, vivid verisimilitude of his dialogue, which Cain described as an attempt to “write as the characters would write,” reflecting the distinct voices “from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices, and even the gutters of this country” in an effort to capture “the logos of the American countryside.” His most famous—and infamous—novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), was initially banned in Boston for obscenity and violence.

Mildred Pierce (1941), another of Cain’s gritty masterpieces, is described by its publisher as “a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence” that centers on the title character—a fierce, powerful woman with “gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness” who struggles heroically, at the height of the Great Depression, to support her children and unemployed, philandering husband. The story of Mildred Pierce, which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1945, has remarkable modern relevance and currency, and has just been adapted again for the screen: HBO released a new mini-series starring Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce, Evan Rachel Wood, and Melissa Leo on Sunday, March 27.

PEN Reads kicks off with an essay by Jon Raymond, the HBO mini-series screenwriter, on the perils and pleasures of adapting a novel to the screen. Other contributors include the writer Laura Lippman, who has long been a champion of Mildred Pierce, and PEN Reads Chair Rob Spillman. Please join us in reading Mildred Pierce and discussing this modern classic with other writers and readers.

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Excerpt from the first chapter of Mildred Pierce.


She didn’t look up. He moistened his lips, asked: “Is Veda home?”

“Not yet she isn’t.”

“I laid low when Ray came to the door just now. I didn’t see any reason for her to know about it. I don’t see any reason for either of them to know about it. I don’t want you to tell them I said good-bye or anything. You can just say—”

“I’ll take care of it.” [Read more]
 

Jon Raymond, screenwriter of the new HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce, on the process of adapting James M. Cain’s novel.

I’m currently on a plane, en route to the glitzy premiere festivities for Mildred Pierce, the HBO mini-series based on the book by James Cain, directed by Todd Haynes, starring Kate Winslet, and which I helped adapt to the screen.

I believe I was on a plane the first time I read Mildred Pierce, come to think of it. [Read more]

Laura Lippman on the characterization of women in Mildred Pierce.

We have become so certain that “Art” finds empathy for all its characters, we forget that villains have their uses. Veda’s bad because she’s bad. I don’t doubt that she has a side to the story, but Cain wasn’t interested in telling it. Mildred Pierce, in his words, was a story about a woman who used men to get what she wanted. [Read more]

Rob Spillman on the historical context of James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce.

James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce, set in Southern California at the time when the roaring ’20s was turning into the low, depressed growl of the ’30s, captures an era that feels remarkably similar to our own. Our economy is in trouble; people, many of them women who must support their children, are scrabbling for work, often like Mildred, working two jobs at once, while some are telling them that their place is in the home. Pierce is a spurned wife, married before she was 17, now a single mother of two who is forced to reckon with the reality of a depressed economy and the needs of her two daughters, as well as her own striving to keep up her upper-middle class appearances. She swallows her pride and enters the labor force as a waitress in a hash house. It is a testament to Mildred’s grit, hard work, and willingness to sacrifice that she achieves something resembling the American dream. But Cain’s heart is noir, and you wouldn’t have much of a story if this were about a happy family, right? [Read more]