Lost novel by James M Cain found

Lost novel by James M Cain found NEWS

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Set for publication next autumn, the lost novel by author James M Cain 'The Cocktail Waitress' has been discovered and dubbed the 'Holy Grail' for crime fans by publishers Hard Case Crime.

The book was the last written by noir giant Cain, before his death in 1977, but unfortunately, never published. The story revolves around a young and beautiful widow, who takes on a job in a cocktail bar shortly after her husband dies under suspicious circumstances. The founder of American publisher, Hard Case Crime, Charles Ardai has spent nearly the last decade searching for the original manuscript, and was alerted to it's existance by Max Allan Collins, the author.

Securing rights to the novel, Mr Ardai has likened this discovery to 'finding a lost score by Gershwin or a lost manuscript by Hemingway, that's how big a deal this is'. He also added that along with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Cain is 'universally considered one of the three greatest writers of noir crimefiction who ever lived.'

The widow, Joan Medford narrates the story. 'Why am I taping this?' Joan says. 'It's in the hope of getting it printed to clear my name of the charges made against me.. of being a femme fatale who knew ways of killing a husband so slick they couldn't be proved. Unfortunately, they cannot be disproved either.. All I know to do is to tell it and tell it all, including some things no woman would willingly tell..'

In a 1976 interview, Cain himself said that 'in my stories, there's usually stuff that you wouldn't think any human being would tell at all. I've just finished a book called The Cocktail Waitress, where the girl tells her story, and there's some pretty intimate stuff. Like most women, she is very reticent about some things ' you know the sex scenes, where she spent the night with a guy. I had her tell enough so that what happened was clear and, at the same time, not go into details. Once she lingered with a sex scene as if she wanted to tell it.'

Author Cain also mentioned The Cocktail Waitress to John McAleer in an interview, recently collected in the published 'Packed and Loaded: Conversations with James M Cain', in which he said although it was a 'pretty good lively story' that he was working through the plot due to a mistake on the story.

'Thinking that my lovers were this woman and her little boy - little three-year-old boy - that figured as her motivation for her job in the cocktail bar that she had to pay for his board, with a sister-in-law that she had, after her husband - this woman's brother - got killed, and it turned out I made a mistake. They were not the real lovers. The real lovers in the story were this man that came in - the very first day a man came in and she fell for him somewhat. And he for her, but I had her using him as a means to an end. Using him as a means of having a home for this child that she had. Where he was the big emotional fact in her life, and so the story has to be done over. It is half done over already.'

According to publishers, Hard Case Crime, handwritten edits and notes appear in numerous page margins throughout the manuscript, and Cain was allegedly working until close to the end of his life on revisions of the story. The New York Times were told by Charles Ardai that currently, he is trying to reconcile the different endings left by James M Cain, and decipher the notes. 'He wasn't a doctor, but he wrote like one.' Ardai said. 'With a magnifying glass, I can figure it out.'