An “Unsettling” Novel: James M. Cain’s The Cocktail Waitress

Abstract: This essay offers a close reading of Jame M. Cain’s The Cocktail Waitress (2012). To frame an evaluation of 21-year-old Joan Medford, the narrator-protagonist of Cain’s novel, it is useful to begin by surveying the author’s reputation before outlining the compositional history of and initial response to the novel. What emerges is a sense of the ambiguity that is amplified in the narrative itself, to the point of constituting a case of hermeneutical undecidability. Medford’s situation at the end of the text is left unresolved, a universal quality of human experience that makes this noir work of fiction compelling.