I agree with what's been said about the importance of Cain
and his influence. There are several factors that have worked
against his reputation. Long after his best work was done, he
continued to write and publish inferior novels. Secondly, I
think he dissed the field by denying any kinship...and this
when he was sending short stories to Manhunt, not all of
which were accepted.
Charles Williams, Gil Brewer, some of JDM and Thompson, Harry
Whittington, really, the Gold Medal line of PBOs was heavily
indebted to Cain.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Bill Crider"
<bcrider@h...> wrote:
> Juri said: ". . .the line coming from James M. Cain
is more
interesting
> than the line coming from Hammett and Chandler. We
wouldn't have
Jim
> Thompson, we wouldn't have Day Keene's and Gil
Brewer's best works
etc. The
> other line has lots of crappy imitators, full of
empty PI bubble
and
> overdose of similes and supposedly funny
lines."
>
> We wouldn't have Charles Williams, for sure. Oddly
enough, John
D.
> MacDonald's most Cain-influenced novel, WEEP FOR ME,
is one that
he didn't
> like and wouldn't allow to be reprinted except once.
Maybe he
thought it
> was too much like Cain. CLEMMIE is another one that
seems
influenced by
> Cain, but maybe MacDonald liked that one better. I
think it was
reprinted
> often.
>
> Bill Crider
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 06 Dec 2004 EST