The torrid story of Frank Chambers, the amoral drifter, Cora, the sullen and brooding wife, and Nick Papadakis, the amiable but inconvenient husband, has become a classic of its kind, and established Cain as a major novelist with a spare and vital prose style and a bleak vision of America. First published in 1934, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE caused a scandal with its explosive mix of violence and sex, and immediately became a bestseller. Having served in the US Army in World War 1, he became a journalist in Baltimore and New York in the 1920s. THE AUTHOR James M.Cain was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1892. Cain died in 1977. He later worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. 2005