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Sinful Woman (novel)
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Wikipedia article
'Sinful Woman' is a detective novel by James M. Cain that appeared originally as a paperback in 1947 by Avon publishers.Hoopes, 1982 p. 442, p. 646Skenazy, 1989 p. 99: ...as close as Cain ever came to writing pure detective fiction.
'Sinful Woman' was the most commercially successful of three paperbacks Cain wrote for Avon in the late 1940s and early 1950s (the other two are 'Jealous Woman' (1950) and 'The Root of His Evil' (1951)).Hoopes, 1982 p. 475
Plot Summary
The story is set in Nevada during the early 1940s. Hollywood screen star Sylvia Shoreham is in Reno, having just finalized her divorce with her now ex-husband cum manager. Shoreman remains resentful that her genuine talent had been squandered in demeaning screen roles. When her former spouse is suddenly found dead, Shoreham comes under suspicion. County Sheriff Parker Lewis is assigned to investigate, but discovers that the suspect is the same movie actress he has idolized for years, based on her early screen portrayal of a noble and self-sacrificing young woman. Lucas wishes to serve as Shoreman's champion and mentor, despite her apparent moral lapses. Shoreman suspects that her sister, Hazel, is the murderer, but she attempts to shoulder the blame to shield her sibling. The situation is complicated when Hollywood executives make a clumsy attempt to shelter their movie star Shoreman from the tabloids by framing the death as a suicide.
The high-minded Lucas and the noble Shoreman discover that they are in love. The mystery is solved when an eyewitness to the accidental death testifies in court. The story ends happily, and the couple helps to raise funds for a tubercular hospital in Reno.Skenazy, 1989 p. 100-101: See here for source of the summary. And: p. 133: In 'Sinful Woman', Cain portrays the movie industry through a series of caricatures of film executives, and mocks the process of making films, the procedures for discovering and developing stars, and the unbelievable story lines of the films themselves.Madden, 1970 p. 65: Tiny sketch of story.
Publication Background
The story was originally based on Cain's 1938 play '7-11'. Cain derived a serial from the play's scenario entitled Galloping Dominos which was never published. The serial was reworked to form a novel, and Avon released it under the title 'Sinful Woman' in 1947.Skenazy, 1989 p. 13: Much of the material [for 7-11] was incorporated into a later novel, Sinful Woman.Hoopes, 1982 p. 442, p. 447-448, p. 475Skenazy, 1989 p. Sinful Woman, or The Galloping Domino as it was originally titled, was first written as a play, '7-11', in the early 1940s, then rewritten as a serial, though Cain was unable to sell the plot to Broadway or to the magazines. Cain's decision to create original novels for paperback editions alarmed his long-time hardback publisher Alfred A. Knopf, according to biographer Roy Hoopes:
Avon publishers provided Cain with a $500 advance for the story, the first of three paperback novellas that he wrote for them.Hoopes, 1982 p. 442: ...Avon [gave Cain] a $500 advance for his short story The Galloping Domino, based on his '7-11' play, and planned to bring it out as an original paperback, to be called 'Sinful Woman'. And: p. 475
Critical Assessment
Cain's most successful novels were written from the first-person confessional point-of-view.Madden, 1970 p. 133 In Sinful Woman, he employs an omniscience third-person narrator, but with less success than his 1941 novel Mildred Pierce.Madden, 1970 p. 133: ...'Sinful Woman', in which Cain most awkwardly indulges in the omniscience of the third-person narrator.Skenazy, 1989 p. 86: In Loves Lovely Counterfeit, as well as Sinful Woman, Cain used the third-person point-of-view, but with far less success than in Mildred Pierce. Literary critic Paul Skenazy writes:
Skenazy adds: The language [in 'Sinful Woman'] is a weird combination, [both] euphemistic and crude, and the sexuality is at once smutty and dull.Skenazy, 1989 p. 128 Biographer and novelist David Madden reports that Cain has never written for the pulps, but observes:
Cain himself did not consider 'Sinful Woman', nor his other works written for paperback as commendable works, and rarely acknowledged as part of his 'oeuvre'.Hoopes, 1982 p. 448: Cain was not vary proud of any of them [paperback originals]...Skenazy, 1989 p. 99: Cain all but disowned them in later interviews.
Footnotes
Sources
*Hoopes, Roy. 1982. 'Cain.' Holt, Reinhart and Winston. New York.
*Madden, David. 1970. 'James M. Cain'. Twayne Publishers, Inc. Library Catalog Card Number: 78-120011.
*Skenazy, Paul. 1989. James M. Cain. Continuum Publishing Company. New York.
Category:1947 novels
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