The Root of His Evil

The Root of His Evil is a novel by James M. Cain published in paperback by Avon in 1951.

Though Cain routinely employed the first-person narrative to tell his stories, The Root of His Evil is the only novel published in his lifetime in which Cain “writes through the voice of a woman.” (His 1941 novel Mildred Pierce is written in the third-person).

The work was originally written in the form of a serial entitled “A Modern Cinderella” in 1938, but was never purchased by any literary magazine.

The story was adapted to film by Universal Pictures in 1939 and released as When Tomorrow Comes, starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer in 1939. Another version, Interlude was released in 1957 and directed by Douglas Sirk.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Cain published three paperback fictions that involve divorce and provide upbeat endings. The Root of His Evil surpasses in quality his other two works: Sinful Woman (1947) and Jealous Woman (1950).