"A novel that, once begun, will almost surely be read to the endit reflects
no codes, no restrictions, and none but the primordial necessities. It is a bath in sensation."
--New York Times Book Review

"[James M. Cain is] the poet of the hard-boiled school of the American novel."
--Washington Post

Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness
and determination. She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two
children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman in the
midst of the Depression. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and
an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.

Out of these elements, Cain created a novel of acute social observation and devastating
emotional violence and a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than
recognizable.