Mildred Pierce is a 1941 hardboiled novel by James M. Cain. It was made into an Academy Award-winning 1945 film of the same name, starring Joan Crawford, and a 2011 Emmy Award-winning miniseries of the same name, starring Kate Winslet. == Plot == Set in Glendale, California, in the 1930s, the book is the story of middle-class housewife Mildred Pierce's attempts to maintain her family's social position during the Great Depression. Mildred separates from her unemployed husband and sets out to support herself and her children. After a difficult search she finds a job as a waitress, but she worries...