Serenade is a very different novel. For a start it is longer than his better known works. Secondly it is much looser in terms of dialogue. Postman and Indemnity felt like the written was squeezing meaning out of every word. In Serenade there are extended discussions about music. The main character is a washed up opera singer, and this allows Cain to wax lyrical about composers, musical styles and musicians. It was a favourite subject of Cain's, and he clearly knew his material. It also helps us understand John Sharp, the washed up singer who gets a lucky break back into fame and fortune via a meeting with a Mexican-Indian prostitute.
We know Sharp because he is a man completely convinced of his own greatness, willing to take any opportunity to get back into the limelight, who falls heavily for Juana. Cain sets her up as the fall guy, the reader expects a moral lesson - where Sharp gets together with an unsuitable, non-white woman, and losses everything. That does, in a way happen, but the great surprise is that it is not Sharp's love for Juana that undoes him, but his previous love for a rich musical lover who happens to be male.
Serenade is remarkable for a novel of its era in having gay sex, and romance, as a key plot point. It is true that the homosexual aspect is effectively used in a negative way. Sharp loses everything because he has to flee his past, and his personal narrative, and tragedy, rests on him breaking with his homosexuality and accepting his straight self. In many ways though it is Juana who is the real heroine here - standing up to the blackmailers and bullies and fighting for Sharp - though breaking from him when she has to.
Its a strange book, and readers will find some of it very difficult to stomach. There's a lot of racism and some sexual violence - Sharp, in fact, rapes Juana early in their relationship - though he makes sure to tell himself throughout the book that it wasn't really rape as she wanted it. it makes for an unusual read, that won't be too everyone's taste and perhaps, tells us more about the times than the story itself. Cain does however write some excellent set pieces, particularly the scene when Sharp and Juana are trapped in a Mexican church in a violent thunderstorm - though there's no surprise that this was not made into a movie by Hollywood.
Related Reviews
Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice
Cain - Double Indemnity
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