Madge Allen

A lion tamer who offers Frank the wandering life Cora cannot share.

What they want

To continue her independent traveling life.

The book

The Postman Always Rings TwiceJames M. Cain, 1934

A roadside affair becomes a murder plan, and getting away with it proves more dangerous than guilt.

Spoiler-free

Frank meets Madge during an attempt to return to the road.

Her unusual work makes her independence practical rather than romantic.

She clarifies Frank's conflict between movement and settled life.

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

What happens to Madge AllenHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Frank sees Madge while Cora is away, deepening Cora's distrust.

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American poet and novelist of Los Angeles rooming houses, racetracks and the post office, who quit his job to write when a publisher offered him a hundred dollars a month. He came to Paris once, in September 1978, drank his way through a live television book programme and walked off the set — and French television has been replaying it ever since.
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The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
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