DOUBLE INDEMNITY, by James Cain

"At just 115 pages, James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity is noir distilled down to its darkest, deepest reduction. The story, originally serialized in 1936 and published as a novel in 1943, strikes the template for the genre: the hard narrator who is actually a softie deep down; the woman in trouble with whom he falls in love, only to discover too late that she was more than she initially seemed; the hard light and lost souls that flood 20th century Los Angeles; and the broken heart of a man who, by the time he commits a crime isn’t sure why, or whether he even wants to get away with it. Much of the noir tradition is built on the archetypes and plot devices—including the classic, hard-boiled, big twist we won’t spoil here—that Cain establishes in this book. There are echoes of Kierkegaard, Nietzche, and Dostoevsky in his austere prose, and in the way his narrator questions the purpose of existence while succumbing almost blasely to his worst impulses. In 1944, Double Indemnity was adapted into a film with a script co-written by Raymond Chandler, and later garnered seven Academy Award nominations." —Elijah Wolfson for Time Magazine

Stop by the Reference Desk after the previous  month’s meeting to pick up a copy of the title, or check out the catalog listing HERE.

Supplemental Reading:

Wikipedia overview of the novel and background HERE.

Book Club Background:

Join us in person or online to look at the history of Mystery as a book genre.

It has been almost 200 years since the publication of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and since then, mystery as a genre has exploded in form, length, language, and more. From The Lady in White, Wilkie Collins’ novel that is considered the first of the genre, through the serialized adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the Golden Age of Agatha Christie, the advent of noir, the rise of thrillers, romantic suspense, and an international cast of characters ranging from retired police officers to meddling sleuths, some famous twins, and armchair detectives.

TIME MAGAZINE PICKS THE 100 BEST MYSTERY NOVELS OF ALL TIME

Each month we might read an article, a short story, a book, or a selection from the same author or the same country. We’ll look at award winners and debut novelists, the standard bearers and the rule breakers. We may talk about movies and TV, too.  We’ll work our way through the decades, looking at similar themes, exotic settings, and recent innovations in a genre that is both familiar and new.

Some of the authors we’ll cover: Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Mary Higgins Clark, Alexander McCall Smith, Jo Nesbo, and more!

Check out the recent Edgar Award winners HERE.

We’ll run this group as hybrid, so anyone can join. If you’re new, please click below to register for the program, and either request the Zoom link, or indicate if you’ll join us in person. Returning readers do not need to register unless they need the Zoom link.

At the end of the day, the butler may have done it, but we’ll decide if he was justified!