A few months back I read an interview with Christa Faust about writing noir, and this this bit jumped out at me:
“No happy endings. Everyone goes down and winds up either dead or wishing they were dead. If your cool, witty, handsome, fedora-clad, jazz-enthusiast Detective Mary Sue walks away unchanged and unscathed at the end of the book, then it ain’t Noir. That’s Hardboiled. Bad, cliched, silly Hardboiled, but Hardboiled nonetheless. Repeat after me: Chandler = Hardboiled. Cain = Noir. Don’t make me explain this again.”
I was reading a lot of Chandler at the time, so this intrigued me. It took me a while, but I finally got around to reading some Cain. It was about time.
Looking at James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice through the long lens of history, I can see it is very much of product of its time while still being amazed that it was actually published in its time. I can only imagine that when it came out in 1934 it was both shocking and relatable. It tells the story of two people — desperate people — trapped in prisons of their own devising, struggling to find their way out. These characters must have been very familiar to Depression-era readers, particularly because of how understandable the book makes both Frank and Cora. Still, it doesn’t refrain from judging the terrible decisions both make, and it clearly repeats the Biblical pronouncement that the wages of sin are death.
So, yeah. Noir. No happy endings. Thanks, Christa. You won’t have to explain this again.