My Friend Mildred Fierce

Forget Joan Crawford and Kate Winslet too—if you want to meet the real Mildred Fierce, get a hold of James M. Cain’s novel and prepare to feel completely insane.

I spent all Sunday reading the book in one great gulp from beginning to end. By the time I finished I felt so deranged I had to call Pretend Husband Hank Fitz (who’d just read it himself and then lent it to me) to make sure I’d gotten it right.

“So it’s all her own fault, isn’t it, Hank?” I bleated. “Everything that happens to her—it’s all completely her own heinous fault.”

"Exactly,” said Hank. “It’s a Greek tragedy.”

“And Monty is not even evil!” I said. “He’s just a desultory sex king.”

“Yes.”

“And even Veda’s not—well, okay, she’s evil--but what else would she be, given total carte noir?”

“What else indeed?”

“Thank you, Hank, I feel so much better.”

“Good,” he said. “Now how ‘bout that cowboy?”

For a second I thought he meant Herbert Fierce, who’d worked as a stunt rider for the movies before getting so unemployed and depressed that he’d had to schtup Mrs. Biederhof and get thrown out by cranky wife Mildred.

But he didn’t mean Herbert Fierce. He meant The Cowboy I wasn’t going to see any more. The Cowboy I was going to see face to face one last time just so I could deliver that news!

“So--did you tell him?” Hank asked.

“Of course I did. I told him on Friday.”

“Wasn’t that April Fool’s Day?”

“What?”

Okay, so it was April Fool’s Day but that’s not why I’m still seeing the Cowboy. I have to keep seeing him—I’m Mildred Fierce!  A Mildred Fierce with no industry maybe, but a Mildred Fierce Manque nonetheless.

Hmm. Maybe that’s why Hank made me read that damn book.

Remind me to kill him when I have the time.