Cain X 3

Cain X 3 is a collection of three previously published novels by James M. Cain, reissued in 1969 by Alfred A. Knopf, with an introduction by Tom Wolfe.[1]

Cain X 3
Cover of the first edition
AuthorJames M. Cain
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreHardboiled novel
PublisherAlfred A. Knopf
Publication date
1969
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback)
ISBN978-1299518889

Cain’s literary oeuvre had drifted into obscurity by the late 1960s, and as a novelist he was at his nadir. Then renewed interest in the hardboiled fiction of the 1930s by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler drew attention to Cain’s contributions to the genre.[2]

Alfred A. Knopf publishers responded by offering this anthology of three of Cain’s most successful novels, Cain X 3: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), Double Indemnity (1936), and Mildred Pierce (1941). Enthusiasm for Cain’s early work persisted into the 1970s and 1980s.[3]

Critical Assessment

Literary critic Tom Wolfe’s fulsome praise for Cain in a 1962 review of author Norman Mailer‘s An American Dream (1965) prompted Knopf to include a laudatory introduction to Cain X 3 by Wolfe.[4][5] Cain X 3 garnered effusive praise from the Time, The Nation, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis Tribune and the Village Voice.[6]

Footnotes
  1. Hoopes, 1982 p.646
  2. Skenazy, 1989 p. 124
  3. Skenazy, 1989 p. 124
  4. Skenazy, 1989 p.124
  5. Hoopes, 1982 p. 517-518
  6. Hoopes, 1982 p. 518-519: See here for brief quotes from each review.

Sources
  • Hoopes, Roy. 1982. Cain. Holt, Reinhart and Winston. New York. ISBN 0-03-049331-5
  • Skenazy, Paul. 1989. James M. Cain. Continuum Publishing Company. New York. ISBN 0-8044-2821-2
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