The Butterfly

22 October 2023: Our little book club discussed James M. Cain's The Butterfly this evening. I am glad to have read it, but it's strange and disturbing little book. Living in West Virginia since 2007 also no doubt shaped my response to it. Cain depicts the potential for violence that runs through masculinity and religious zealotry, especially when it intersects with poverty and social marginalization. But most of the characters seem underdrawn.

I like this little excerpt from Paul Skenaz (which I found on Wikipedia) that says better than I could my own feelings about it: "The Butterfly confirms the way that Cain himself is a victim of, as much as a writer who profits from, the stereotypical forms of social understanding and visions of gender that dominate the American mind." 

Anyway, like I said, glad to have read it.