I've talked about reading this book on here already, but it continues to reverberate in my mind a week later. And here is my mini review for Barrie Summy's Book Review Club.
MILDRED PIERCE is different from Cain's other work in that there are no murders, no crimes at all. It's a portrait of a woman in the years during the depression trying to support her two daughters and find some happiness for herself.
She turns out to be very good at supporting them financially and she parlays her skills for pie making into a small restaurant chain. She is less successful in supporting her family in other ways though and allows her unbridled love for her older daughter undo everything.
The men are not admirable; no one comes off very well. Economic distress may have a hand in this, of course. This book provides the reader with a good portrait of life in southern California during the depression. These are not the same people we see in THE GRAPES OF WRATH, of course. But they struggle too.
One of the biggest fascinations for me was how Cain laid out the details of life for Mildred Pierce: how a restaurant is run, how a waitress learns her craft, how people dress, decorate their homes, all of these things. And it also has four strong women as characters. Pretty unusual. It's the men who are weak in MILDRED PIERCE.
Mildred is one of the more enigmatic characters in fiction. Was she a monster herself? Did she turn the people in her lives into monsters? Would Vida have been the way she was if raised by someone else? Certainly Mildred's admiration for Vida's worst flaws, traits she saw as fine and noble rather than cruel and superficial, allowed them to flourish. Validated them. Would she have lost her husband had she provided him with more emotional support? These are the questions that make this book work so well.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for those who like dark characters.
For more book reviews today, check out Barrie Summys blog right here.
18 comments:
The more I read about this, especially from you, the more I think I should give it a try. It's one of the few Cain books I have NOT read.
Oh, that little brat ... it's a wonderful book, but it does leave one somewhat sympathetic to child battery ...
Patti - Thanks for this review. You are so right that this is a dark story and really shows what happens when love becomes twisted...
I like dark characters...thanks for the review!
Although this book is dark, it's dark as a psychological study rather than as a violent one.
I really loved Cain's main other noir novels, but have yet to read this one. My wife loves the original film. Think I'm going to get to it this summer.
Sounds excellent, Patti! Thanks for visiting mine review, too!
I can't say I liked this as much as Cain's other two really famous novels, but it is very good, well worth reading. A warning, though. If you've seen the 40s movie version, try to forget it when reading the book. This is not a crime novel.
All told I probably like the others better. But I liked this one for its originality. For its coverage of life at that time. And for its portrayal of what happens when we indulge our loved ones too much.
The fact that this book is set in So Cal sounds good to me. :) And I do like a dark character. Intersting that the female characters are stronger than the male. Thanks for reviewing!
It must have been a brilliant book as you cannot stop thinking about the characters.
Being from SoCal and the fact that my grandparents lived in SoCal during the depression would make this an interesting read for me.
Sounds like a very interesting book and not what you'd expect from a male author.
I'm probably one of the few who've never seen the movie, so I could read this book without any preconceived expectations at all. The characters sound fascinating.
Sounds interesting. I'd like to parlay my pie-making skills into something myself. :)
Thanks for a great review!
MILDRED PIERCE is an easy book to like, but a hard book to love. The characters are very flawed. Yet, the story of a woman, in the depths of the Depression, succeeding in business is compelling. Her relationship with her creepy daughter is another story...
Very good way to put it, George.
George, you should join the First Wednesday Book Review group. Scott is our only man.
I'm late on the scene this month.
I'm of course aware of this movie, but I've never read a review of the book. It sounds marvelous--love enigmatic characters. Thanks for the review!
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