The Car Man (Bourne) opera. I didn't even know it that well, and I still don't know it that well, to be honest. I know there are parallels, but it was more the feeling of the music and the feeling of what we all know Carmen to be." The story is loosely based on the 1934 novel "The Postman Always Rings Twice" by American novelist James M. Cain (1892–1977) and the 1946 and 1981 films of the same name respectively starring John Garfield and Lana Turner, and Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. In the films, Frank, a drifter, stops at a rural California diner
The Postman Always Rings Twice (novel) while Frank is driving. The book ends with Frank, from death row, summarizing the events that followed, explaining that he was wrongly convicted of having murdered Cora. The text, he hopes, will be published after his execution. The title is a "non sequitur" in that no postman appears or is even alluded to. The meaning of the title has therefore often been the subject of speculation. William Marling, for instance, suggested that Cain may have taken the title from the sensational 1927 case of Ruth Snyder, who, like Cora in "Postman", had conspired with her lover to murder her husband.