James Mallahan Cain (July 1, 1892 – October 27, 1977) was an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter. He is widely regarded as a progenitor of the hardboiled school of American crime fiction.Madden, 1970 p. 17: "The twenty-minute egg of hard-boiled fiction is James. M. Cain..."Skenazy, 1989 p. 156: "...Cain's hard-edged analytical understanding of the underside of American life [and one of the] tough-guy writers of his time..." Composite quote, meaning unaltered.
His novels The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), Double Indemnity (1936), Serenade (1937), Mildred Pierce (1941) and The Butterfly (1947) brought him critical acclaim and an immense popular readership in America and abroad.Hoopes, 1989 p. 448
Though Cain never delivered a successful Hollywood screenplay, several of his novels were made into highly regarded films, among them Double Indemnity (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).Hoopes, 1982 p. xii
In 1970, Cain became one of the Edgar Awards' Grand Masters. He continued to write and publish novels into his eighties. A number of his works were issued posthumously, including The Cocktail Waitress (2012).Skenazy, 1989 p. 12-13Hoopes, 1982 p.xi And: p. 537-539
Family background Cain's paternal and maternal grandparents emigrated from Ireland and both families settled in New Haven, Connecticut during the early 1850s. Cain reported they were not agrarian refugees of the Great Famine of Ireland.Hoopes, 1981 p. 3: Cain's admitted that this view contradicts family "legend" regarding the famine and his ancestors. His paternal grandfather P. W. Cain was an industrial worker who served as a superintendent for the Hartford Railroad. His wife, Mary (née Kelly), died in a typhoid fever outbreak in 1876. Cain's father, James W. "Jim" Cain, then 16 years-of-age, contracted but survived the illness. When P. W. Cain remarried, the disaffected Jim Cain gravitated to the home of the local Mallahan family, among whose daughters was Rose Mallahan, his future wife and mother to the famous author.Hoopes, 1981 p. 3-4
The elder James W. Cain matriculated to Yale University in 1880 at the age of 20 and taught evening school to pay for his tuition. A consummate Yale man—"handsome, articulate, intelligent and athletic"—he graduated in 1884 and became a professor at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland.Hoopes, 1981 p. 4 And p. 39-40: See here for profile on the elder Cain and his drinking, his reputation at the university. And p.53: The elder Cain's on-campus reputation as a drinker.Skenazy, 199 p. xv
Cain's maternal grandmother, Brigid Ingoldsby Mallahan, was a descendant of Irish pirate William Ingoldsby, who had captured and ravaged the English colonial city of New York in 1691. His mother, Rose Mallahan—"small, pretty and very distinguished-looking"—had trained for seven years in her youth as a coloratura soprano and expected to pursue a career in opera after giving recitals in New Haven. She gave up these musical aspirations to marry her girlhood sweetheart Jim Cain in 1890. She gave birth to the first of her five children on July 1, 1892: James Mallahan Cain.Hoopes, 1981 p. 4-5 And p.39: See here for profile of Cain's mother Rose. And p. 40: Cain a "mama's boy."Skenazy, 1989 p. xv
Early life The six-year-old Cain entered grade school in Annapolis in 1898. An upbringing in a household with two highly literate parents contributed to the boy's "impeccable grammar" and his early enthusiasm for literature. Cain's father, then the head of the Annapolis School Board, indulged his son's request to skip two grades, from third to fifth. Though intellectually precocious, Cain later regretted the advancement, especially as his classmates entered puberty well ahead of him.Hoopes, 1981 p.12-13 And p. 19: Cain ignored or dismissed by older classmates. The elder Cain's superior performance at St. John's College earned him the post of President of Washington College, at the time "a small non-denominational, co-educational school." In 1903, when Cain turned eleven, the family relocated to Chestertown, Maryland.Hoopes, 1981 p. 13-14
While living in Chestertown, Cain recalled encountering a garrulous bricklayer, Ike Newton, who introduced the young student to the "language of an uneducated but articulate person." Biographer Roy Hoopes traces Cain's fascination with common speech to this encounter, and compares it to the experiences of authors Jonathan Swift and Stephen Crane. Cain credited Newton's "vulgate" as instrumental to the development of his narrative style as a novelist.Hoopes, 1981 p. 17 By the age of 12, Cain was a "voracious" reader and familiar with the literary works of Edgar Allan Poe, William Thackeray, James Fenimore Cooper, Alexandre Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert Louis Stevenson.Hoopes, 1981 p. 19 Cain was granted permission to take preparatory classes at Washington College, where he took courses with youths four years his senior.Hoopes, 1981 p. 19: Cain, at 12, was taking courses with 16-year-olds.
By the time Cain reached the age of 13, he had rejected the doctrines of the Catholic Church, especially the confessional, calling it "mumbo-jumbo." As an adult, according to biographer Roy Hoopes, "he came to regard the Church as one of the most ominous factors in all human history" and crafted his own independent view of "life and God." In Chestertown, Cain continued to sing in the church choir as a youth.Hoopes, 1981 p. 20
Though considered "one of the bright students on campus", his performance at the university was "erratic." Excelling in German and French language courses, his grades in Greek were mediocre; he passed his classes in "science, chemistry and Latin" but favored his coursework in history and literature. He also demonstrated an aptitude for mathematics, but found the topic unchallenging.Hoopes, 1981 p. 23-24 Just before his eighteenth birthday, Cain took his Artium Baccalaureus degree. Upon graduation from Washington College, neither Cain nor his family had any plans for his career.Hoopes, 1981 p. 30-31: "...absolutely no idea what he wanted to do [with his life]..."
Early employment: 1910–1917 After moving to Baltimore to live independently, Cain engaged in desultory employment, working briefly as a ledger clerk for a public utility, then serving for two years as a road inspector for the State of Maryland. His clear and incisive reports on operations led Cain to contemplate a career in writing.Hoopes, 1982 p. 34, p. 36 In his late teens, he frequented local brothels with male friends (Cain reports that he did not sleep with the prostitutes) and had a number of affairs with older women.Hoopes, 1981 p. 31-33
In 1913 he accepted a job as principal of a high school in Vienna, Maryland, and while there enjoyed performing as a singer at community gatherings. When he informed his family that he wished to pursue a career as a professional operatic singer, his mother, a trained soprano, emphatically vetoed him: "You have no voice, no looks, no stage personality. Not one! You have some musical sense, but that is not enough."Hoopes, 1981 p. 20: Cain was unaware of his mother's musical talent as a singer until, in his early teens, Rose sightread a score to a Catholic offertory when the scheduled singer withdrew. Undeterred, Cain—possessing only a "good, barroom bass"—moved to Washington, D.C., to enroll in a voice training course. To support himself he worked briefly in "office to office" insurance salesmanship for the General Accident Company but never sold a single policy.Hoopes, 1981 p. 35: Minor sequential edit to mother's quote, meaning unaltered. And p. 152: Ruth Goodman, daughter of playwright Philip Goodman describes Cain's voice as "quite lovely...it was obvious he had had some training."
After quitting a low-paying job as a Victrola salesman, Cain abandoned his hopes of becoming a professional singer and committed himself to becoming a writer, receiving his parents' blessings.Hoopes, 1982 p. 36-37 Biographer Roy Hoopes notes that Cain's postgraduate period was not "misspent":
Cain returned home to Chestertown in 1914 and was hired as an English instructor at Washington College, and there acquired a master's degree in drama. For years he made efforts to write fiction but without success. In 1917, at the age of 24, he was still living at home and as yet unpublished. He accepted a position as a math teacher in the autumn and registered for the draft when the United States entered World War I but was initially rejected for respiratory disorders.Hoopes, 1981 p. 40-41, p. 50, p. 54Skenazy, 1989 p.xv: Master's Degree.
Career in journalism: 1917–1935 The Baltimore American hired Cain as a cub reporter in the summer of 1917 and assigned him to a police unit. His first article, on a local drowning, so impressed the copy editor that Cain was instantly promoted to major assignments related to the war effort. Cain honored his commitment to serve as a math teacher but soon quit to return to journalism. He was hired by The Baltimore Sun in early 1918.Hoopes, 1981 p. 56-57
In June 1918, Cain, a skeptic of American war propaganda, was inducted into the Army and began basic training at Camp Meade, Maryland.Hoopes, 1982 p. 58-59
Military service, Signal Corps: 1918–1919 Cain sought and obtained assignment to a combat unit destined for action in France, the 79th Infantry Division, known as both the "Joan of Arc" and the "Lorraine Cross" Division.Hoopes, 1981 p. 61-62Skenazy, 1989 p. xvi Private First Class Cain's unit was engaged in the summer of 1918, after the Battle of the Marne, in a major offensive action, the Meuse-Argonne campaign. Attached to headquarters, Cain manned observation posts. His efforts to establish battlefield contact with the 157th Infantry Brigade on September 26–27 became the basis for his 1929 short story "The Taking of Montfaucon." In late October, weeks before the end of the war, Cain barely survived a poison gas attack.Hoopes, 1981 p. 66-68Skenazy, 1989 p. 6Hoopes, 1981 p. 88 Cain was assigned as editor-in-chief of the 157th's newsletter The Lorraine Cross. Alexander Woollcott, then a sergeant editing Stars and Stripes, called it "a snappy young journal." Cain was designated a publicity officer for the Division.
He was mustered out of the army on June 5, 1919, at Hoboken, New Jersey.Hoopes, 1981 pp.72-75, p. 78-79
Newspaperman: the Roaring Twenties Cain resumed working for The Baltimore Sun, serving as a copy editor at $30 a week in the post-war period. At his own request, Cain was assigned to cover the industrial labor movement and its purported infiltration by Bolsheviks during the first Red Scare.Hoopes, 1982 p. 85-87 And p. 88-89: Cain a "labor reporter." And p. 93: "...Big Red Scare..."
Cain married Mary Rebekah Clough, his college sweetheart, on January 17, 1920.Hoopes, 1981 p. 26: See here for Cain's profile of Clough in her youth. And p. 85: See here for mismatch info, her pursuit of Cain They would separate in 1924 and divorce in 1927.Hoopes, 1982 p. 104: See here for decline of relationship. And: p. 112, p. 157
In early 1920, Cain became aware of the writing of the famed H. L. Mencken, editor of The Smart Set, "considered the most sophisticated magazine in the country at the time." According to biographer Roy Hoopes, his introduction to Mencken's writing was "the most important event of Cain's professional career ...Mencken's style almost intoxicated him..." Though Cain submitted essays to The Smart Set, none were approved. Cain, however, established a friendly correspondence with the editor.Hoopes, 1982 p. 88-89 And: p. 96: "...the new arbiter of American literary taste..."