Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain

nIn Mildred Pierce, noir master James M. Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devasting emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable. nMildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness.

She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter.n