Career in C Major
American opera-themed novella / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Career in C Major is an opera-themed novella by American writer James M. Cain, first published in 1938. First appearing as a serial in The American Magazine entitled "Two Can Sing", this comic romance is a departure from Cain's first novels, Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) and Double Indemnity (1936), both hardboiled crime stories that included premeditated murder.[1][2] Redbook magazine, disappointed that Cain had exchanged his hard-boiled themes involving sex and murder for a "comedic adventure", declined to purchase the novella but Liberty obtained the piece and carried it as a serial in 1935.[3][4]
The story was included with two of Cain's depression era novels in 1943 in a collection entitled Three of a Kind.[5][6] Career in C Major was adapted to film in 1938 by Twentieth Century Fox as Wife, Husband and Friend, and again in 1949 as Everybody Does It.[7][8]