In the 1946 film version Frank (John Garfield) has a lengthy and slightly clunky closing speech explaining the meaning of the title to his captors.

Pffft, said Knopf. He didn’t like any of them. As September turned to October, and the first galleys still had “Bar-B-Q” on them, Knopf began to get anxious. “We really must christen the book soon,” he wrote. He came up his own title–“For Love or Money”– and pushed Cain to take it. “It’s good,” he wrote on Oct. 6, underlining “good” four times. Postman’s influence ranges across genre and time. Albert Camus remarked that the themes and style of Postman were an influence on The Stranger. Dennis Lehane has been quoted about the impact Cain’s dialog – full of vernacular and true to character – had on him. In a way, most crime novels other than procedurals and private detective stories owe a nod to Cain. He was a champion of featuring the perpetrator of the crime, rather than law enforcement.Some may point to the racism and anti-immigrant feeling in this 1934 novel as signs it has aged poorly—I disagree. The toxic xenophobia on display here is exactly the point. I'm telling you." "If I was, I wouldn't have got scared so easy. I was _so_ scared, Frank." "I was scared plenty, myself." "You know what I wanted when the lights went out? Just you, Frank. I wasn't any hell cat at all, then. I was just a little girl, afraid of the dark." "I was there, wasn't I?" "I loved you for it. If it hadn't been for you, I don't know what would have happened to us." "Pretty good, wasn't it? About how he slipped?" "And he believed it."

The quality that appeals to me most about The Postman Always Rings Twice (aside from the terrific title, which has no correlation to the story and might've simply been something Cain overheard and thought would look good in print) is how harrowing it is. Set during the Great Depression, the story reflects a time when young men hit the road with no idea where their next meal would come from and young women were trapped in marriages they could no more walk out on than they could become tramps themselves. Living moment to moment, desperately, anything can happen. A masterful wordsmith, Cain puts the reader right there. Which would all seem very sweet except for the fact that they are planning to kill The Greek. Frank would have never had the ambition for such a deed on his own. His idea is that they just take off, become gypsies, live off the land, but Cora wants to be free, and she also wants the diner. This is an enjoyable, relatively short, novel. As is the case with most short novels, probably by necessity in a short novel, character development is kept to a minimum. The novel is also a time piece. The traffic and roads in the area around Los Angeles described here are very different from today. I have found this novel on at least one list of the supposed "100 greatest novels". That, of course, is completely a matter of taste. However to me, I am quite certain I have read 100 novels better than this. Flanders, Judith (2003). The Victorian House: Daily Life from Childbirth to Deathbed. London: HarperCollins. p. 106. ISBN 0-00-713188-7.This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( July 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Because of the grittiness of the story, specifically the sex and violence, the book came under scrutiny immediately after its publication. The book unflinchingly depicts scenes of sadomasochism, eroticism, and brutal violence that ended up getting the book banned in Boston and Canada. Cain, James M. (1969). Cain X 3: Three Novels. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. p.8. ISBN 9781299518889.