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Mildred Pierce would have made a great guest for Dr. Phil or Oprah.

During the Great Depression, Mildred’s husband has been moping about since the collapse of his real estate business and takes up with another woman until Mildred has enough and throws him out. That takes care of one problem but leaves her to support their two daughters herself. With no work experience, Mildred finally takes a job as a waitress that she finds humiliating, but eventually her parlays what she learns and her baking skills into a successful restaurant.

So Mildred could be a great example of feminine independence as a single mother who becomes a small business owner thanks to her hard work and careful planning. On the other hand, Mildred is often a conflicted mess with an inferiority complex who can never find the balance between living too cheaply or too extravagantly, and she’s got horrible taste in men.

And then there’s her daughter Veda.

Veda is an exceptional instance of a writer creating a character that you just love to hate with this snobby manipulative child who looks down her nose at the mother who supports her and grows into something even worse.

Damn, did I love to hate Veda.

I hated her so much that I hoped that Mildred would sell her off to work in a Depression-era sweatshop in which there was some kind of dangerous machinery that would mangle her.

I hated Veda so much that I hoped she’d get polio.

I hated Veda so much that I hoped she’d take an airplane ride with Amelia Earhart.

I hated Veda so much that I hoped she’d end up traveling with the Joad family so she’d get all the misery she so richly deserved.

I hated Veda so much that I started hating Mildred for loving her.

Since Cain created a couple of classic noir femme fatales in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, it’s interesting that he wrote this book about the complex and unhealthy relationship between a mother and a daughter that also took a long look at what it was like for women of the era.