Books: Dingy Storyteller

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THREE OF A KIND—James M. Cain—Knopf ($2.50).

It is popularly supposed that people go right on reading the thrillers of James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Serenade) through five-alarm fires and the sudden inheritance of large blocks of stock. This is very nearly true. Cain's appeal is partly sheer narrative skill—and partly the fact that he is one of the world's most vivid tellers of dingy stories.

His latest exhibition consists of three long short tales—hissing with suspense and detonating in surprise endings—on a guaranteed, all-weather theme: what happens (lust at first sight) when a middle-aging U.S. male with a lively libido and no intellect meets a female with curves and no inhibitions. All three stories have the rancid air of authenticity which Cain obtains by screwing down his competent microscope on a drop of that social seepage which discharges daily into U.S. tabloids and criminal courts. And as in any drop of ditch water, the action in Cain's tales is of infusorial violence.

Least violent is Career in C Major, which is intentional opéra bouffe. Its hero is Leonard Borland, a big-time contractor stalled by the Depression. He is the henpecked husband of an awesome socialite with a nasty disposition and a maniacal ambition to be a singer. Leonard is also an undiscovered baritone of great power. One day a concupiscent soprano, the season's sensation, sights and seduces him. Sample: "We stayed that way a minute, breathing into each other's faces, looking into each other's eyes. Then she mumbled: 'Damn you, you'll kiss first.' 'I will like hell' She put her arms around me, tightened. Then she kissed me, and I kissed back. 'You were slow enough.' 'I was wondering what you wanted.' 'I wanted you, you big gorilla. Ever since you came in there this morning. . . .' " She discovers Leonard's baritone. And Leonard discovers what a terrible singer his wife is.

The Embezzler and Double Indemnity are stern moral warnings that it is easier to embezzle money than to put it back, to murder husbands than to collect their accident insurance. Both tales are also remarkable examples of the art with which Cain makes unfamiliar readers feel at home in such worlds as banking and insurance, the skill with which he uses business routines to build suspense.

In The Embezzler a bank teller goes to the hospital for an operation on his duodenum. His wife gentles the vice president into letting her take over her husband's job, then draws him into helping her replace $9,000 her husband has stolen. The consequences include the locking of a man in the bank vault, a California spider and a running gun fight. In Double Indemnity a quiet California housewife (with "a shape to set a man nuts") persuades an insurance salesman to collaborate on her husband's murder. And so on—with readers hanging on Cain's hypnotic typewriter.

Undemocratic America

BROTHERS UNDER THE SKIN—Carey McWilliams—Little, Brown ($3).

"We have not one, but two, American traditions: the generous, liberal, and democratic tradition; and the narrow, bigoted, and authoritarian tradition. The existence of the latter can be largely explained in terms of our long-standing neglect of colored minorities. . . ."