Profile of Patricia Highsmith on Famous Like Me

Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 - February 4, 1995) was an American novelist who is known mainly for her psychological crime thrillers. She acquired world renown for Strangers on a Train, which has been adapted to the screen a number of times, most famously by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951, and for her Ripliad series of books on the character of Thomas Ripley.

Early life

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Highsmith spent most of her life living in France and Switzerland, and was long widely appreciated in Europe while suffering relative obscurity in the United States. She had an unhappy childhood; not only did her mother drink turpentine while pregnant in order to abort her, but she also repeatedly told her so while she was growing up. Highsmith's parents divorced a few days before she was born, and she grew up hating her stepfather. She also had a difficult, love-hate relationship with her mother, which haunted her for the rest of her life.

She was a lifelong diarist, and developed her writing style as a child writing entries in which she fantasized that her neighbours had psychological problems and murderous personalities behind their facades of normality, a theme she would explore extensively in her novels.

A bisexual, Highsmith included homosexual overtones in many of her novels. The best example is The Price of Salt—rejected by her publishers, and especially controversial for its happy ending, theretofore unheard of in fiction concerning homosexuality—which concerned an obsessive lesbian relationship. It was eventually published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan in 1953 and sold almost a million copies. The inspiration of the book's main character, Carol, was a woman who Highsmith saw in Bloomingdales where she worked at the time. She found out her address from her credit card details and a few months later began to stalk her.

Personal life

According to her biography, Beautiful Shadow, Highsmith's personal life was a troubled one; an alcoholic who never had a relationship that lasted for more than a few years, she was seen by many of her contemporaries and acquaintances as misanthropic and cruel. While she was often antisocial (she famously preferred the company of animals to that of people) and held controversial political views (she has been accused of racism, antisemitism, and even misogyny), many people close to her said she was shy and unhappy rather than mean-spirited.

Novels

The protagonists in Highsmith's novels defy the accepted model in detective fiction of the tough-talking but honest hero, featured in the works of authors such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler; the heroes in many of her novels are either morally compromised by circumstance or actively flouting the law. Many of her antiheros commit murder coldbloodedly, in fits of passion, or simply to extricate themselves from a bad situation. They are seldom brought to justice, a concept that does not seem to exist in her writing.

Her recurring character Tom Ripley, an amoral, sexually ambiguous thief and occasional murderer, was first introduced in 1955's The Talented Mr. Ripley. It was filmed by René Clément in 1960 as Plein Soleil (Purple Noon), starring Alain Delon, whom Highsmith praised as the ideal actor to portray Ripley. It was also adapted under its original title as a 1999 film by Anthony Minghella, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Cate Blanchett. A later Ripley novel, Ripley's Game, inspired Wim Wenders' 1977 film The American Friend (which Highsmith disliked) and was filmed again in 2002 under its original title, starring John Malkovich and directed by Liliana Cavani. Ripley was featured in a total of five novels, known to fans as the Ripliad, written between 1955 and 1991.

Highsmith died of leukemia in Locarno, Switzerland, in 1995. Her last novel "Small g: A summer idyll", was published posthumously a month later.

Selected bibliography

• Strangers on a Train (1950)
• The Price of Salt (as Claire Morgan) (1953)
• The Blunderer (1954)
• The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
• Deep Water (1957)
• A Game for the Living (1958)
• This Sweet Sickness (1960)
• The Two Faces of January (1961)
• The Cry of the Owl (1962)
• The Glass Cell (1964)
• A Suspension of Mercy (1965)
• Those Who Walk Away (1967)
• The Tremor of Forgery (1969)
• Ripley Under Ground (1970)
• A Dog's Ransom (1972)
• Ripley's Game (1974)
• Edith's Diary (1977)
• The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980)
• People Who Knock on the Door (1983)
• Ripley Underwater (1991)

External link

• detective fiction website Highsmith bibliography
• Review of Beautiful Shadow
• Ron Collins, "Heart Failure": Review of Nothing Meets the Eye: The Uncollected Stories of Patricia Highsmith

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