The Cocktail Waitress is the lost final novel of James M. Cain, author of such famous works as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce. I usually skew toward science fiction and fantasy, but I decided the last novel of such a famous writer would be interesting.
The Cocktail Waitress tells the story of Joan Medford, a recently widowed woman whose abusive alcoholic husband only left her with debt. With no gas, heat, food, or electricity Joan is forced to leave her son in the car of her conniving sister-in-law who is eager to declare her unfit and steal her son. Desperate to hold on to her life and and keep her child, Joan takes a job as a cocktail waitress at a local bar/restaurant called the Garden of Roses. In a standard set up for a love triangle, she meets two men vying for her affections; Earl K. White the Third, an exorbitantly rich older man, and Tom Barclay a handsome young man with big dreams. Joan finds herself drawn to each. Earl can give her everything she could want for herself and her son. Even though Tom isn’t the brightest or most respectful man in the world, Joan finds herself sexually drawn to him. This is a story of lust, greed, and the toll they take when the meet ambition and desperation. Joan fashions herself into a femme fatale to take advantage of Earl’s money. The plot follows Joan’s descent from a relatively normal woman down on her luck, to a cold “gold digger” as her lawyer describes her.
As Cain’s final work, this novel is decent but falls flat in certain spots. The dialogue is a bit too plain and formal at points. A waitress is supposed to be charming and flirtatious and Joan comes across as stiff. It makes sense for someone who is not used to being a waitress to sound uncomfortable in that role, however it detracts from the believability of her charming a rich old man for his money. The narration is told from Joan’s point of view. It doesn’t suffer from the same problems her conversations do. Putting the formal dialogue aside I still want to root for the heroine. Despite her morally questionable actions, she is still primarily a sympathetic character. Her motivation is honest and understandable. She may be playing with a man’s emotions for her own financial gain, but only because she is trying to protect her child. Her sister-in-law, Ethel, is a nasty piece of work. She openly accuses Joan of prostitution and murder in front of her child. She has been taken advantage of, abused, and objectified by everyone around her, and motivates herself to get her life straight. The greatest strength of the novel is Joan’s realization of the consequences of her action. Joan is a equal parts victim and villain. Where does her survival instinct end, and pure greed take over? She falls away from herself, gets everything she wanted, and almost loses everything she fought for. The novel delicately handles the karmic retribution, and bring everything to a bittersweet conclusion.
My biggest complaint is about the novel is that there is a subplot which is more interesting than the main plot. Private Church is a young energetic cop who is investigating the death of Joan’s husband. He is convinced that Joan murdered her husband and attempts to railroad her without proper evidence. I find the story of a innocent woman with a few skeletons in her closet being abused by a legal system a better thriller than a gold digger motivated by greed. When this subplot reaches critical mass, its resolved within the space of a few pages.
All in all The Cocktail Waitress is worth the read. I would recommend it for to any fan of James Cain, or a crime thrillers in general.
On a scale of one to Epic (Epic equals 10) The Cocktail Waitress gets a 7
On a Scale of 1 to Epic (Epic = 10): 
