Mildred Pierce: James M. Cain

Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter... Cover shows Joan Crawford as Mildred and Ann Blyth as Veda  as well as scenes from the film on the back.