 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | James M. Cain |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Hardboiled novel |
| Publisher | Mysterious Press |
Publication date | 1984 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0892960798 |
Cloud Nine is a hard-boiled detective novel by James M. Cain published in 1984 by Mysterious Press. [1]
Graham Kirby, raised since adolescence by his foster mother, the elderly yet attractive Jane Silbert, expects to inherit her property and make a fortune in real estate development. When Kirby’s younger half-brother Burl makes pregnant the sixteen-year-old Sonya Lang, Kirby marries the teenage girl to avoid a local scandal and to arrange for an abortion. Sonya miscarries, and Kirby discovers he is falling in love with her.
Unbeknownst to Kirby, his foster mother Jane is secretly attracted to him, and resents his marriage to Sonya. When Jane allows herself to be seduced by Burl, Sonya reveals to her mother-in-law Burl’s history of brutal and predatory sexual behavior, including suspicions that he is responsible for the death of a former lover. Burl retaliates, assaulting Kirby and threatening to rape Sonya; she kills him in self-defense. Kirby and Sonya bond through adversity, and embark upon a rosy future reconciled with the now doting Jane. [2]
Editor William Koshland at Alfred A. Knopf, in rejecting the manuscript for Cloud Nine, wrote to Cain: “...I’m sorry, but I just can’t warm up to the book, the characters who people it, or the shenanigans through which you put them. It would make no sense for me to go into detail, Jim. I hate like hell to turn you down, but it’s gotta be.” [3] Mysterious Press published the novel in 1984. [4]
Literary critic Paul Skenazy comments on Cloud Nine:
Cain is ill-served by the book. This work is a lengthy justification of adult male desires for adolescent women and a confirmation of the mature male’s adequacy to a young female…it is all a bit pitiful and demeaning. Women, it is suggested, enjoy being raped and assaulted, so long as the right man does it. [5]
Mildred Pierce is a psychological drama by James M. Cain published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1941.
James Mallahan Cain was an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter. He is widely regarded as a progenitor of the hardboiled school of American crime fiction.
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1934 crime novel by American writer James M. Cain. The novel was successful and notorious upon publication. It is considered one of the most outstanding crime novels of the 20th century. The novel's mix of sexuality and violence was startling in its time and caused it to be banned in Boston.
Double Indemnity is a 1943 crime novel by American journalist-turned-novelist James M. Cain. It was first published in serial form in Liberty magazine in 1936 and later republished as one of "three long short tales" in the collection Three of a Kind.
Career in C Major is an opera-themed novella by American writer James M. Cain, first published in 1938. First appearing as a serial in The American Magazine entitled "Two Can Sing", this comic romance is a departure from Cain's first novels, Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) and Double Indemnity (1936), both hardboiled crime stories that included premeditated murder. Redbook magazine, disappointed that Cain had exchanged his hard-boiled themes involving sex and murder for a "comedic adventure", declined to purchase the novella but Liberty obtained the piece and carried it as a serial in 1935.
Three of a Kind is a collection of three novellas by James M. Cain, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1943. Each originally appeared as serials in magazines during the 1930s. The collection includes Double Indemnity, first published in 1935 as a serial for Liberty magazine; Career in C Major, originally entitled "Two Can Sing" when it appeared in The American Magazine in 1938; and The Embezzler, appearing in Liberty as "Money and the Woman", also in 1938.
Serenade is a novel by James M. Cain published in 1938 by Alfred A. Knopf. and one of four Cain novels to feature opera as a plot device. Loosely based on Bizet's Carmen, the story explores the sources of artistic development, in particular the role played by sexual orientation in the development of artistic talent.
Love's Lovely Counterfeit is a hard-boiled short novel by James M. Cain published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1942. The story is set in a Midwestern town where rival gangsters struggle to maintain control of their criminal enterprises. The work is one of only three of Cain's novels told from the third-person point-of-view.
Past All Dishonor is a historical novel by James M. Cain published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1946. The story is set during the American Civil War concerning a tragic love affair between a Confederate spy and a mining-camp prostitute in California and Nevada. The novel, praised by many critics, was one of Cain's most profitable literary successes.
The Butterfly is a hard-boiled novel by author James M. Cain published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1947. The story is set in rural West Virginia in the late 1930s and concerns a mystery surrounding an apparent case of father and daughter incest.
Sinful Woman is a detective novel by James M. Cain that appeared originally as a paperback in 1947 by Avon publishers. Sinful Woman was the most commercially successful of three paperbacks Cain wrote for Avon in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Galatea is a romance novel by James M. Cain published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1953. The story alludes to the mythological Galatea in which the sculptor Pygmalion falls in love with the ivory figure of a woman he has crafted. In Cain’s modernized version of the Greek legend, an overweight woman is transfigured through a program of weight reduction into a goddess-like beauty.
The Root of His Evil is a novel by James M. Cain published in paperback by Avon in 1951.
The Moth is a novel by James M. Cain published in 1948 by Alfred A. Knopf. The work is the last of Cain’s four novels to feature opera as a central element of the story; the others are Serenade (1937), Mildred Pierce (1941) and Career in C Major (1943) At over three-hundred pages, The Moth is Cain’s “most personal, most ambitious and longest book” in his oeuvre, attempting to convey a “broad, social landscape” of America in the 1930s.
Mignon is a historical novel by James M. Cain published by the Dial Press in 1962. Along with Past All Dishonor (1946), Mignon is one of Cain’s two historical novels set during the American Civil War.
The Magician's Wife is a novel by James M. Cain published in 1965 by Dial Press.
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.
Rainbow’s End is a crime novel by American writer James M. Cain published in 1975 by Mason-Charter publishers, with an introduction by Tom Wolfe
Jealous Woman is a mystery novel by James M. Cain published in 1950 by Avon.
The Enchanted Isle is a novel by James M. Cain published by The Mysterious Press in 1985.