Mildred Pierce

Poor Mildred. Her husband leaves her. She has no job skills, and there aren't any jobs anyway--it's the Depression. But, by gum, she will not let her problems get her down. Narrator Christine Williams does the best she can with the material, affecting a high-toned delivery reminiscent of heroines of films from the '40s. While appropriate, the performance eventually strains the nerves of the listener. Mildred has great legs and a wonderful figure, and she has sex when she feels like it--it was shocking for its time, but it's not that interesting for modern listeners. Cain's other novels, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE and DOUBLE INDEMNITY, feature tough broads like Mildred, but when put in the spotlight, she fails to carry the load. R.O. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

May 28, 2007
Cain’s classic novel, and the source for the 1945 film starring Joan Crawford, makes its way onto audio with this reading by actor and singer Williams. Cain’s purple prose and then-scandalous dialogue take on new life under Williams’s direction, her assured tone underscoring the legendary noir writer’s rip-roaring tale of a woman scorned who survives no-good men and a hateful daughter to make it in 1930s Los Angeles. Williams is out of her depth encountering tense or high-pitched dialogue, reading it in a clipped monotone that does little for Cain’s drama, but is on far stronger ground with the rest of the book, which flourishes under her steady, patient, ever-so-slightly melancholic gaze. Williams’s reading lacks the rage that moved Crawford’s Mildred, but her version of the now-familiar story amplifies our sense of Cain’s heroine as an abandoned woman who finds her own way, on her own terms.