Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith
Publicity photo from 1962
Born	Mary Patricia Plangman (1921-01-19)January 19, 1921 Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.
Died	February 4, 1995(1995-02-04) (aged 74) Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland
Pen name	Claire Morgan (1952)
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer
Language	English
Education	Julia Richman High School
Alma mater	Barnard College (BA)
Period	1942–1995
Genre	Suspense, psychological thriller, crime fiction, romance
Literary movement	Modernist literature
Notable works	Strangers on a Train The Price of Salt (a.k.a. Carol) The Blunderer The Talented Mr. Ripley Deep Water The Cry of the Owl
Signature

Patricia Highsmith (born Mary Patricia Plangman; January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novels and numerous short stories throughout her career spanning nearly five decades, and her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her writing derived influence from existentialist literature, and questioned notions of identity and popular morality. She was dubbed "the poet of apprehension" by novelist Graham Greene.

Her first novel, Strangers on a Train (1950), has been adapted for stage and screen, the best known being the 1951 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Her 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley has been adapted for film multiple times. Writing under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, Highsmith published The Price of Salt in 1952, the first lesbian novel with a "happy ending"; it was republished 38 years later as Carol under her own name and later adapted into a 2015 film.

Early life

Highsmith was born Mary Patricia Plangman in Fort Worth, Texas on January 19, 1921. She was the only child of commercial artists Jay Bernard Plangman (1889–1975) and Mary Plangman (née Coates; September 13, 1895 – March 12, 1991). Her father had not wanted a child and had persuaded her mother to have an abortion. Her mother, after a failed attempt to abort her by drinking turpentine, decided to leave Plangman. The couple divorced nine days before their daughter's birth.

In 1927 Highsmith moved to New York City to live with her mother and her stepfather, commercial artist Stanley Highsmith, whom her mother had married in 1924. Patricia excelled at school and read widely, including works by Jack London, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, and John Ruskin. At the age of nine, she became fascinated by the case histories of abnormal psychology in The Human Mind by Karl Menninger, a popularizer of Freudian analysis.

In the summer of 1933, Highsmith attended a girls' camp and the letters she wrote home were published as a story two years later in Woman's World magazine. She received $25 for the story. After returning from camp, she was sent to Fort Worth and lived with her maternal grandmother for a year. She called this the "saddest year" of her life and felt "abandoned" by her mother. In 1934 she returned to New York to live with her mother and stepfather in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. She was unhappy at home. She hated her step father and developed a life-long love–hate relationship with her mother, which she later fictionalized in stories such as "The Terrapin", about a young boy who stabs his mother to death.

She attended the all-girl Julian Richman High School where she achieved a B minus average grade. She continued to read widely—Edgar Allan Poe was a favorite—and began writing short stories and a journal. Her story "Primroses are Pink" was published in the school literary magazine.

In 1938 Highsmith entered Barnard College where her studies included English literature, playwriting and short story composition. Fellow students considered her a loner who guarded her privacy but she formed a life-long friendship with fellow student Kate Kingsley Skattebol. She continued to read voraciously, kept diaries and notebooks, and developed an interest in eastern philosophy, Marx and Freud. She also read Thomas Wolfe, Marcel Proust and Julien Green with admiration. She published nine stories in the college literary magazine and became its editor in her senior year.

Apprentice writer

After graduating in 1942, Highsmith, despite endorsements from "highly placed professionals," applied without success for a job at publications such as Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Mademoiselle, Good Housekeeping, Time, Fortune, and The New Yorker. She eventually found work with FFF Publishers which provided copy for various Jewish publications. The job, which paid $20 per week, lasted only six months but gave her experience in researching stories.

In December 1942 Highsmith found employment with comic book publisher Sangor–Pines where she earned up to $50 per week. She wrote "Sergeant Bill King" stories, contributed to Black Terror and Fighting Yank comics, and wrote profiles such as Catherine the Great, Barney Ross, and Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker for the "Real Life Comics" series. After a year, she realized she could make more money and have more flexibility for travel and serious writing by working freelance for comics and she did so until 1949. From 1943 to 1946, under editor Vincent Fago at Timely Comics, she contributed to its U.S.A. Comics wartime series, writing scenarios for characters such as "Jap Buster Johnson" and The Destroyer. For Fawcett Publications she scripted characters including "Crisco and Jasper." She also wrote for True Comics, Captain Midnight and Western Comics. Working for comics was the only long-term job Highsmith ever held.

Highsmith considered comics boring "hack work" and was determined to become a novelist. In the evenings she wrote short stories which she submitted, unsuccessfully, to publications such as The New Yorker. In 1944 she spent five months in Mexico where she worked on an unfinished novel "The Click of the Shutting". On her return to Manhattan she worked on another unfinished novel "The Dove Descending".

The following year, "The Heroine," a story about a pyromaniac nanny that she had written in 1941, was published by Harper's Bazaar. The publishers Knopf wrote her that they were interested in publishing any novels she might have. Nothing, however, came from their meeting. Highsmith's agents advised her that her stories needed to be more "upbeat" to be marketable but she wanted to write stories that reflected her vision of the world.

In 1946, Highsmith read Camus' The Stranger and was impressed by his absurdist vision. The following year she commenced writing Strangers on a Train, and her new agent submitted an early draft to a publisher's reader who recommended major revisions. Based on the recommendation of Truman Capote, Highsmith was accepted by the Yaddo artist's retreat during the summer of 1948, where she worked on the novel.

Strangers on a Train was accepted for publication by Harper & Brothers in May 1949. The following month, Highsmith sailed to Europe where she spent three months in England, France and Italy. In Italy, she visited Positano which would later become the major setting for her novel The Talented Mr Ripley. She read an anthology of Kierkegaard on the trip and declared him her new "master".

Personal life

Highsmith endured cycles of depression, some of them deep, throughout her life. Despite literary success, she wrote in her diary of January 1970: "[I] am now cynical, fairly rich ... lonely, depressed, and totally pessimistic." Over the years, Highsmith had female hormone deficiency (Hypoestrogenism), anorexia nervosa, chronic anemia, Buerger's disease, and lung cancer.

To all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle—may they never give me peace.

– Patricia Highsmith, "My New Year's Toast", journal entry, 1947

According to her biographer, Andrew Wilson, Highsmith's personal life was a "troubled one". She was an alcoholic who, allegedly, never had an intimate relationship that lasted for more than a few years, and she was seen by some of her contemporaries and acquaintances as misanthropic and hostile. Her chronic alcoholism intensified as she grew older.

She famously preferred the company of animals to that of people and stated in a 1991 interview, "I choose to live alone because my imagination functions better when I don't have to speak with people."

Otto Penzler, her U.S. publisher through his Penzler Books imprint, had met Highsmith in 1983, and four years later witnessed some of her theatrics intended to create havoc at dinner tables and shipwreck an evening. He said after her death that "[Highsmith] was a mean, cruel, hard, unlovable, unloving human being ... I could never penetrate how any human being could be that relentlessly ugly. ... But her books? Brilliant."

Other friends, publishers, and acquaintances held different views of Highsmith. Editor Gary Fisketjon, who published her later novels through Knopf, said that "She was very rough, very difficult ... But she was also plainspoken, dryly funny, and great fun to be around." Composer David Diamond met Highsmith in 1943 and described her as being "quite a depressed person—and I think people explain her by pulling out traits like cold and reserved, when in fact it all came from depression." J. G. Ballard said of Highsmith, "The author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley was every bit as deviant and quirky as her mischievous heroes, and didn't seem to mind if everyone knew it." Screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, who adapted The Price of Salt into the 2015 film Carol, met Highsmith in 1987 and the two remained friends for the rest of Highsmith's life. Nagy said that Highsmith was "very sweet" and "encouraging" to her as a young writer, as well as "wonderfully funny."

She was considered by some as "a lesbian with a misogynist streak."

Highsmith loved cats, and she bred about three hundred snails in her garden at home in Suffolk, England. Highsmith once attended a London cocktail party with a "gigantic handbag" that "contained a head of lettuce and a hundred snails" which she said were her "companions for the evening."

She loved woodworking tools and made several pieces of furniture. Highsmith worked without stopping. In later life, she became stooped, with an osteoporotic hump. Though the 22 novels and 8 books of short stories she wrote were highly acclaimed, especially outside of the United States, Highsmith preferred her personal life to remain private.

A lifelong diarist, Highsmith left behind eight thousand pages of handwritten notebooks and diaries.

345 E. 57th Street, NYC – Residence of Patricia Highsmith

Sexuality

As an adult, Patricia Highsmith's sexual relationships were predominantly with women. She occasionally engaged in sex with men without physical desire for them, and wrote in her diary: "The male face doesn't attract me, isn't beautiful to me." She told writer Marijane Meaker in the late 1950s that she had "tried to like men. I like most men better than I like women, but not in bed." In a 1970 letter to her stepfather Stanley, Highsmith described sexual encounters with men as "steel wool in the face, a sensation of being raped in the wrong place—leading to a sensation of having to have, pretty soon, a boewl [sic] movement," stressing, "If these words are unpleasant to read, I can assure you it is a little more unpleasant in bed." Phyllis Nagy described Highsmith as "a lesbian who did not very much enjoy being around other women" and the few sexual dalliances she had had with men occurred just to "see if she could be into men in that way because she so much more preferred their company."

In 1943, Highsmith had an affair with artist Allela Cornell who, despondent over unrequited love from another woman, died by suicide in 1946 by drinking nitric acid.

During her stay at Yaddo, Highsmith met writer Marc Brandel, son of author J. D. Beresford. Even though she told him about her homosexuality, they soon entered into a short-lived relationship. He convinced her to visit him in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he introduced her to Ann Smith, a painter and designer with a previous métier as a Vogue fashion model, and the two became involved. After Smith left Provincetown, Highsmith felt she was "in prison" with Brandel and told him she was leaving. "[B]ecause of that I have to sleep with him, and only the fact that it is the last night strengthens me to bear it." Highsmith, who had never been sexually exclusive with Brandel, resented having sex with him. Highsmith temporarily broke off the relationship with Brandel and continued to be involved with several women, reuniting with him after the well-received publication of his new novel. Beginning November 30, 1948, and continuing for the next six months, Highsmith underwent psychoanalysis in an effort "to regularize herself sexually" so she could marry Brandel. The analysis was brought to a stop by Highsmith, after which she ended her relationship with him.

After ending her engagement to Marc Brandel, she had an affair with psychoanalyst Kathryn Hamill Cohen, the wife of British publisher Dennis Cohen and founder of Cresset Press, which later published Strangers on a Train.

To help pay for the twice-a-week therapy sessions, Highsmith had taken a sales job during Christmas rush season in the toy section of Bloomingdale's department store. Ironically, it was during this attempt to "cure" her homosexuality that Highsmith was inspired to write her semi-autobiographical novel The Price of Salt, in which two women meet in a department store and begin a passionate affair.

Believing that Brandel's disclosure that she was homosexual, along with the publication of The Price of Salt, would hurt her professionally, Highsmith had an unsuccessful affair with Arthur Koestler in 1950, designed to hide her homosexuality.

In early September 1951, she began an affair with sociologist Ellen Blumenthal Hill, traveling back and forth to Europe to meet with her. When Highsmith and Hill came to New York in early May 1953, their affair ostensibly "in a fragile state", Highsmith began an "impossible" affair with the homosexual German photographer Rolf Tietgens, who had played a "sporadic, intense, and unconsummated role in her emotional life since 1943." She was reportedly attracted to Tietgens on account of his homosexuality, confiding that she felt with him "as if he is another girl, or a singularly innocent man." Tietgens shot several nude photographs of Highsmith, but only one has survived, torn in half at the waist so that only her upper body is visible. She dedicated The Two Faces of January (1964) to Tietgens.

Between 1959 and 1961, Highsmith was in love with author Marijane Meaker. Meaker wrote lesbian stories under the pseudonym "Ann Aldrich" and mystery/suspense fiction as "Vin Packer", and later wrote young adult fiction as "M. E. Kerr." In the late 1980s, after 27 years of separation, Highsmith began corresponding with Meaker again, and one day showed up on Meaker's doorstep, slightly drunk and ranting bitterly. Meaker later said she was horrified at how Highsmith's personality had changed.

Highsmith was attracted to women of privilege who expected their lovers to treat them with veneration. According to Phyllis Nagy, she belonged to a "very particular subset of lesbians" and described her conduct with many women she was interested in as being comparable to a movie "studio boss" who chased starlets. Many of these women, who to some extent belonged to the Carol Aird-type and her social set, remained friendly with Highsmith and confirmed the stories of seduction.

An intensely private person, Highsmith was remarkably open and outspoken about her sexuality. She told Meaker: "the only difference between us and heterosexuals is what we do in bed."

Death

Highsmith died on February 4, 1995, at 74, from a combination of aplastic anemia and lung cancer at Carita Hospital in Locarno, Switzerland, near the village where she had lived since 1982. She was cremated at the cemetery in Bellinzona; a memorial service was conducted in the Chiesa di Tegna in Tegna, Ticino, Switzerland; and her ashes were interred in its columbarium.

She left her estate, worth an estimated $3 million, and the promise of any future royalties, to the Yaddo colony, where she spent two months in 1948 writing the draft of Strangers on a Train. Highsmith bequeathed her literary estate to the Swiss Literary Archives at the Swiss National Library in Bern, Switzerland. Her Swiss publisher, Diogenes Verlag, was appointed literary executor of the estate.

Political views

Highsmith described herself as a social democrat. She believed in American democratic ideals and in "the promise" of U.S. history, but was also highly critical of the reality of the country's 20th-century culture and foreign policy. Beginning in 1963, she resided exclusively in Europe. She retained her United States citizenship, despite the tax penalties, of which she complained bitterly while living for many years in France and Switzerland.

Highsmith was a resolute atheist. Although she considered herself a liberal, and in her school years had gotten along with black students, in later years she believed that black people were responsible for the welfare crisis in America. She disliked Koreans because "they ate dogs".

Highsmith supported Palestinian self-determination. As a member of Amnesty International, she felt duty-bound to express publicly her opposition to the displacement of Palestinians. Highsmith prohibited her books from being published in Israel after the election of Menachem Begin as prime minister in 1977. She dedicated her 1983 novel People Who Knock on the Door to the Palestinian people:

To the courage of the Palestinian people and their leaders in the struggle to regain a part of their homeland. This book has nothing to do with their problem.

The inscription was dropped from the U.S. edition with permission from her agent but without consent from Highsmith. Highsmith contributed financially to the Jewish Committee on the Middle East, an organization that represented American Jews who supported Palestinian self-determination. She wrote in an August 1993 letter to Marijane Meaker: "USA could save 11 million per day if they would cut the dough to Israel. The Jewish vote is 1%."

Although Highsmith was an active supporter of Palestinian rights, according to Carol screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, her expression of this "often teetered into outright antisemitism." Highsmith was an avowed antisemite; she described herself as a "Jew hater" and described The Holocaust as "the semicaust". When she was living in Switzerland in the 1980s, she used nearly 40 aliases when writing to government bodies and newspapers deploring the state of Israel and the "influence" of the Jews.

Major works

Highsmith's first novel, Strangers on a Train, proved modestly successful upon publication in 1950, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 film adaptation of the novel enhanced her reputation.

How was it possible to be afraid and in love, Therese thought. The two things did not go together. How was it possible to be afraid, when the two of them grew stronger together every day? And every night. Every night was different, and every morning. Together they possessed a miracle.

–The Price of Salt, chapter eighteen (Coward-McCann, 1952)

Highsmith's second novel, The Price of Salt, was published in 1952 under the pen name Claire Morgan. Highsmith mined her personal life for the novel's content. Its groundbreaking happy ending and departure from stereotypical conceptions about lesbians made it stand out in lesbian fiction. In what BBC 2's The Late Show presenter Sarah Dunant described as a "literary coming out" after 38 years of disaffirmation, Highsmith finally acknowledged authorship of the novel publicly when she agreed to the 1990 publication by Bloomsbury retitled Carol. Highsmith wrote in the "Afterword" to the new edition:

If I were to write a novel about a lesbian relationship, would I then be labelled a lesbian-book writer? That was a possibility, even though I might never be inspired to write another such book in my life. So I decided to offer the book under another name.
The appeal of The Price of Salt was that it had a happy ending for its two main characters, or at least they were going to try to have a future together. Prior to this book, homosexuals male and female in American novels had had to pay for their deviation by cutting their wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to heterosexuality (so it was stated), or by collapsing – alone and miserable and shunned – into a depression equal to hell.

The paperback version of the novel sold nearly one million copies before its 1990 reissue as Carol. The Price of Salt is distinct for also being the only one of Highsmith's novels in which no violent crime takes place, and where her characters have "more explicit sexual existences" and are allowed "to find happiness in their relationship."

Her last novel, Small g: a Summer Idyll, was rejected by Knopf (her usual publisher by then) several months before her death, leaving Highsmith without an American publisher. It was published posthumously in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing in March 1995, and nine years later in the United States by W. W. Norton.

The "Ripliad"

In 1955, Highsmith wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley, a novel about Tom Ripley, a charming criminal who murders a rich man and steals his identity. Highsmith wrote four sequels: Ripley Under Ground (1970), Ripley's Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980) and Ripley Under Water (1991), about Ripley's exploits as a con artist and serial killer who always gets away with his crimes. The series—collectively called "The Ripliad"—are some of Highsmith's most popular works.

The "suave, agreeable and utterly amoral" Ripley is Highsmith's most famous character, and has been critically acclaimed for being "both a likable character and a cold-blooded killer." He has typically been regarded as "cultivated", a "dapper sociopath", and an "agreeable and urbane psychopath."

Sam Jordison of The Guardian wrote, "It is near impossible, I would say, not to root for Tom Ripley. Not to like him. Not, on some level, to want him to win. Patricia Highsmith does a fine job of ensuring he wheedles his way into our sympathies." Film critic Roger Ebert made a similar appraisal of the character in his review of Purple Noon, René Clément's 1960 film adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley: "Ripley is a criminal of intelligence and cunning who gets away with murder. He's charming and literate, and a monster. It's insidious, the way Highsmith seduces us into identifying with him and sharing his selfishness; Ripley believes that getting his own way is worth whatever price anyone else might have to pay. We all have a little of that in us." Novelist Sarah Waters esteemed The Talented Mr. Ripley as the "one book I wish I'd written."

According to biographer Joan Schenkar, Highsmith only once gave a direct response to a question about the definition of a murderer. On the British late-night television discussion programme After Dark she said: "Frankly...I'd call them sick if they were murderers, mentally sick".

The first three books of the "Ripley" series have been adapted into films five times. In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter announced that a group of production companies were planning a television series based on the novels. Ripley ultimately premiered on Netflix in 2024, starring Andrew Scott in the title role.

Reception of work

Highsmith's first novel, Strangers on a Train, received favourable reviews in the New Yorker, New York Herald Tribune and New York Times, but the Times Literary Supplement considered it a "confected thriller" with a "ludicrous plot." The novel was shortlisted for the Edgar Allan Poe Prize and sales increased after the release of the Hitchcock film adaptation.

Her pseudonymous second novel, The Price of Salt (Carol), was praised in the New York Times Book Review for "sincerity and good taste" but the reviewer found the characters underdeveloped. The novel would go on to sell almost one million copies in paperback before its republication under Highsmith's name in 1990.

Highsmith biographer Richard Bradford states that The Talented Mr Ripley (1956) "forged the basis for her long term reputation as a writer." The novel was reviewed favourably in the New York Times Book Review and the New Yorker, the critics praising Highsmith's convincing portrait of a psychopath. The novel went on to win the Edgar Allan Poe Scroll of the Mystery Writers of America.

Highsmith's critical reputation grew in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. Brigid Brophy, writing in the New Statesman, praised The Two Faces of January (1964) stating that Highsmith had made the crime story literature. Julian Simmons in The Sunday Times commended Highsmith's subtle characterization. The novel won the Silver Dagger Award of the British Crime Writers' Association for best foreign novel of 1964. Graham Greene admired her work and considered The Tremor of Forgery (1969) her best novel. Marghanita Laski, however, denounced her work as immoral and lacking human decency.

Her novels were often critically acclaimed in the United States and Britian but sold poorly compared with Europe where her critical and popular reputation was higher. Peak sales for her novels in the United States, on initial publication, were under 8,000 each. The Tremor of Forgery and Ripley Under Ground (1970) sold just under 7,000 in their first year in Britain. Found in the Street (1987) sold 4,000 copies in the United States compared with 40,000 in Germany.

Since Highsmith's death, her novels of the 1950s and 1960s have attracted the most critical acclaim. Bradford considers Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr Ripley her most accomplished novels and states, "Highsmith has done more than anyone to erode the boundaries between crime writing as a recreational sub-genre and literature as high art." />

Themes, style and genre

Themes

Highsmith's themes were influenced by Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka, and the existentialism of Sartre and Camus. Her biographer Andrew Wilson argues that her work presents an amoral world view in which murderers go unpunished or are only punished by chance. In 1966, Highsmith wrote: "neither life nor nature cares whether justice is ever done or not."

Irrational behavior, abnormal psychology and extreme emotional states are recurrent themes. Biographer Richard Bradford writes, "Issues such as guilt, hatred, self-loathing and unfulfilled longing which Highsmith endlessly contemplated without resolution became the cocktail for her fictional narratives and characters." Critic Russell Harrison states that Highsmith's protagonists often act irrationally because of self-imposed emotional constraints. According to Graham Greene, "Her characters are irrational and they leap to life in the very lack of reason; suddenly we realize how unbelievably rational most fictional characters are."

Highsmith explored issues of double, splintered and shifting identities. Biographer Andrew Wilson states that many of her novels involve a struggle between two men who search out an opposite but defining doppelgänger. Critic Fiona Peters points out that The Talented Mr Ripley and This Sweet Sickness involve protagonists who create false identities. Harrison argues: "the theme of an individual transforming himself or herself, of the willed construction of a personality, once again suggest[s] existentialism’s emphasis on individual choice free of any hint of determinism through history or genetics."

Critic David Cochran sees Highsmith's work as a critique of suburban America: "According to the dominant vision, a family, house in the suburbs and successful job equalled mental health and happiness, whereas the absence of these things led to sickness. But Highsmith consistently worked to break down these oppositions too. Especially in her view of American men, Highsmith subverted many of the ideological bases of the suburban ideal."

Male homosexual desire was a subtext of many of Highsmith's early works. Biographer Joan Schenker states that the typical Highsmith situation is "two men bound together psychologically by the stalker-like fixation of one upon the other, a fixation that always involves a disturbing, implicitly homoerotic fantasy." Highsmith explored lesbian relationships in The Price of Salt. Homosexuality was an important theme in later novels such as Found in the Street (1986) and Small g: a Summer Idyll (1995).

Style

Highsmith mostly wrote in the third-person singular from the point of view of the main character who is usually male. In several novels she alternates the point of view of two leading male characters. In 1966, she explained that a single point of view "increased the intensity of a story" whereas a double point of view brings a "change of pace and mood."

Wilson calls Highsmith's prose style crisp, compact and near transparent. Schenker describes her narrative tone as a "low, flat compellingly psychotic murmur." Wilson describes her tone as amoral, adding: "The mundane and the trivial are described in the same pitch as the horrific and the sinister and it is this unsettling juxtaposition that gives her work such power."

Commentators have variously described the atmosphere invoked by Highsmith's work as one of suspense, apprehension or unease. Graham Greene called her "the poet of apprehension." Peters states: "Highsmith’s forte is anxiety: rather than merely turning the page to discover what happens next – in other words to be held in a state of suspense – her readers are suspended in a haze of dread, anxiety and apprehension." Wilson argues that Highsmith disturbs her readers by manipulating them into identifying with unconventional psychologies: "Highsmith's world is seen through the distorted perspective of an 'abnormal' man, but the style of writing is so transparent and flat that by the end the reader aligns himself with a point of view that is clearly unbalanced and disturbed."

Genre

Highsmith was usually classified as a crime, suspense or mystery writer in the United States, whereas in Europe she was considered a psychological or literary novelist. Peters argues that she does not fit comfortably within accepted genres. Bradford considers The Talented Mr Ripley a precursor to gothic realism. Harrison argues that psychological realism is not prominent in her work and judges The Price of Salt to be one of her most social realist novels. Some of her short stories, such as "The Snail-Watcher," have been classified as horror.

Honors

• 1979 : Grand Master, Swedish Crime Writers' Academy
• 1987 : Prix littéraire Lucien Barrière, Festival du Cinéma Américain de Deauville
• 1989 : Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, French Ministry of Culture
• 1993 : Best Foreign Literary Award, Finnish Crime Society
• 2008 : Greatest Crime Writer, The Times

Awards and nominations

• 1946 : O. Henry Award, Best First Story, for The Heroine (in Harper's Bazaar)
• 1951 : Nominee, Edgar Allan Poe Award, Best First Novel, Mystery Writers of America, for Strangers on a Train
• 1956 : Edgar Allan Poe Scroll (special award), Mystery Writers of America, for The Talented Mr. Ripley
• 1957 : Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, International, for The Talented Mr. Ripley
• 1963 : Nominee, Edgar Allan Poe Award, Best Short Story, Mystery Writers of America, for The Terrapin (in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine)
• 1963 : Special Award, Mystery Writers of America, for The Terrapin
• 1964 : Silver Dagger Award, Best Foreign Novel, Crime Writers' Association, for The Two Faces of January (pub. Heinemann)
• 1975 : Prix de l'Humour noir Xavier Forneret for L'Amateur d'escargots (pub. Calmann-Lévy) (English title: Eleven)

Bibliography

Main article: Patricia Highsmith bibliography

Novels

• Strangers on a Train (1950)
• The Price of Salt (1952) (as Claire Morgan) (republished as Carol in 1990 under Highsmith's name)
• The Blunderer (1954)
• Deep Water (1957)
• A Game for the Living (1958)
• This Sweet Sickness (1960)
• The Cry of the Owl (1962)
• The Two Faces of January (1964)
• The Glass Cell (1964)
• A Suspension of Mercy (1965) (published as The Story-Teller in the U.S.)
• Those Who Walk Away (1967)
• The Tremor of Forgery (1969)
• A Dog's Ransom (1972)
• Edith's Diary (1977)
• People Who Knock on the Door (1983)
• Found in the Street (1986)
• Small g: a Summer Idyll (1995)

The "Ripliad"

• The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
• Ripley Under Ground (1970)
• Ripley's Game (1974)
• The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980)
• Ripley Under Water (1991)

Adaptations of Highsmith works

Highsmith discussing murder on British television programme After Dark (June 1988)

Several of Highsmith's works have been adapted for other media, some more than once. In 1978, Highsmith was president of the jury at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival.

Film

• 1951: Strangers on a Train was adapted as a film of same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Farley Granger as Guy Haines, Robert Walker as Bruno Anthony, Ruth Roman as Anne Morton, Patricia Hitchcock as Barbara Morton and Laura Elliott as Miriam Joyce Haines.
• 1963: The Blunderer was adapted as French language film Le meurtrier ("The Murderer"), directed by Claude Autant-Lara starring Maurice Ronet as Walter Saccard, Yvonne Furneaux as Clara Saccard, Gert Fröbe as Melchior Kimmel, Marina Vlady as Ellie and Robert Hossein as Corbi. It is known in English as Enough Rope.
• 1969: Strangers on a Train was adapted as Once You Kiss a Stranger, directed by Robert Sparr starring Paul Burke as Jerry, Carol Lynley as Diana and Martha Hyer as Lee.
• 1977: This Sweet Sickness was adapted as French language film Dites-lui que je l'aime, directed by Claude Miller starring Gérard Depardieu as David Martineau, Miou-Miou as Juliette, Dominique Laffin as Lise, and Jacques Denis as Gérard Dutilleux. It is known in English as This Sweet Sickness.
• 1978: The Glass Cell was adapted as German language film Die gläserne Zelle, directed by Hans W. Geißendörfer starring Brigitte Fossey as Lisa Braun, Helmut Griem as Phillip Braun, Dieter Laser as David Reinelt and Walter Kohut as Robert Lasky.
• 1981: Deep Water was adapted as French language film Eaux profondes, directed by Michel Deville starring Isabelle Huppert as Melanie and Jean-Louis Trintignant as Vic Allen.
• 1983: Edith's Diary was adapted as German language film Ediths Tagebuch, directed by Hans W. Geißendörfer starring Angela Winkler as Edith.
• 1986: The Two Faces of January was adapted as German language film Die zwei Gesichter des Januars, directed by Wolfgang Storch starring Charles Brauer as Chester McFarland, Yolanda Jilot as Colette McFarland and Thomas Schücke as Rydal Keener.
• 1987: The Cry of the Owl was adapted as French language film Le cri du hibou, directed by Claude Chabrol starring Christophe Malavoy as Robert, Mathilda May as Juliette, Jacques Penot as Patrick and Virginie Thévenet as Véronique.
• 1987: The film version of Strangers on a Train by Alfred Hitchcock inspired the black comedy American film Throw Momma from the Train, directed by Danny DeVito.
• 1989: A Suspension of Mercy (aka The Story Teller) was adapted as German language film Der Geschichtenerzähler, directed by Rainer Boldt starring Udo Schenk as Nico Thomkins and Anke Sevenich as Helen Thomkins.
• 2009: The Cry of the Owl was adapted as a film of same name, directed by Jamie Thraves starring Paddy Considine as Robert Forester and Julia Stiles as Jenny Thierolf.
• 2014: The Two Faces of January was adapted as a film of same name, written and directed by Hossein Amini starring Viggo Mortensen as Chester MacFarland, Kirsten Dunst as Colette MacFarland and Oscar Isaac as Rydal. It was released during the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
• 2014: A Mighty Nice Man was adapted as a short film, directed by Jonathan Dee starring Kylie McVey as Charlotte, Jacqueline Baum as Emilie, Kristen Connolly as Charlotte's Mother, and Billy Magnussen as Robbie.
• 2015: A film adaptation of The Price of Salt, titled Carol, was written by Phyllis Nagy and directed by Todd Haynes, starring Cate Blanchett as Carol Aird and Rooney Mara as Therese Belivet.
• 2016: The Blunderer was adapted as A Kind of Murder, directed by Andy Goddard starring Patrick Wilson as Walter Stackhouse, Jessica Biel as Clara Stackhouse, Haley Bennett as Ellie Briess, and Eddie Marsan as Mitchell "Marty" Kimmel.
• 2022: Deep Water was adapted again, directed by Adrian Lyne starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas.

"Ripliad"

• 1960: The Talented Mr. Ripley was adapted as French language film Plein soleil (titled Purple Noon for English-language audiences, though it translates as "Full Sun" ). Directed by René Clément starring Alain Delon as Tom Ripley, Maurice Ronet as Philippe Greenleaf, and Marie Laforêt as Marge Duval. Both Highsmith and film critic Roger Ebert criticized the screenplay for altering the ending to prevent Ripley from going unpunished as he does in the novel.
• 1977: Ripley's Game (third novel) and a "plot fragment" of Ripley Under Ground (second novel) were adapted as German language film Der Amerikanische Freund (The American Friend). Directed by Wim Wenders with Dennis Hopper as Ripley. Highsmith initially disliked the film but later found it stylish, although she did not like how Ripley was interpreted.
• 1999: The Talented Mr. Ripley was adapted as an American production. Directed by Anthony Minghella with Matt Damon as Ripley, Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge Sherwood.
• 2002: Ripley's Game was adapted as a film of same name for an English language Italian production. Directed by Liliana Cavani with John Malkovich as Ripley, Chiara Caselli as Luisa Harari Ripley, Ray Winstone as Reeves Minot, Dougray Scott as Jonathan Trevanny, and Lena Headey as Sarah Trevanny. Although not all reviews were favorable, Roger Ebert regarded it as the best of all the Ripley films.
• 2005: Ripley Under Ground was adapted as a film of same name. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode with Barry Pepper as Ripley, Jacinda Barrett as Héloïse Plisson-Ripley, Willem Dafoe as Neil Murchison, and Tom Wilkinson as John Webster.
• 2024: Ripley is an American television series originally ordered by Showtime in 2019, with Steven Zaillian directing, and Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley. Development of the limited series moved to Netflix in 2023, and premiered the following year.

Television

• 1958: Strangers on a Train was adapted by Warner Brothers for an episode of the TV series 77 Sunset Strip.
• 1982: Scenes from the Ripley novels were dramatized in the episode A Gift for Murder of The South Bank Show, with Jonathan Kent portraying Tom Ripley. The episode included an interview with Patricia Highsmith.
• 1983: Deep Water was adapted as a two-part miniseries for German television as Tiefe Wasser, directed by Franz Peter Wirth starring Peter Bongartz as Vic van Allen, Constanze Engelbrecht as Melinda van Allen, Reinhard Glemnitz as Dirk Weisberg, Raimund Harmstorf as Anton Kameter, and Sky du Mont as Charley de Lisle.
• 1987: The Cry of the Owl was adapted for German television as Der Schrei der Eule, directed by Tom Toelle starring Matthias Habich as Robert Forster, Birgit Doll as Johanna Tierolf, Jacques Breuer as Karl Weick, Fritz Lichtenhahn as Inspektor Lippenholtz, and Doris Kunstmann as Vicky.
• 1993: The Tremor of Forgery was adapted as German television film Trip nach Tunis, directed by Peter Goedel starring David Hunt as Howard Ingham, Karen Sillas as Ina Pallant and John Seitz as Francis J. Adams.
• 1995: Little Tales of Misogyny was adapted as Spanish/Catalan television film Petits contes misògins, directed by Pere Sagristà starring Marta Pérez, Carme Pla, Mamen Duch, and Míriam Iscla.
• 1996: Strangers on a Train was adapted for television as Once You Meet a Stranger, directed by Tommy Lee Wallace starring Jacqueline Bisset as Sheila Gaines ("Guy"), Theresa Russell as Margo Anthony ("Bruno") and Celeste Holm as Clara. The gender of the two lead characters was changed from male to female.
• 1996: A Dog's Ransom was adapted as French television film La rançon du chien, directed by Peter Kassovitz starring François Négret as César, François Perrot as Edouard Raynaud, Daniel Prévost as Max Ducasse and Charlotte Valandrey as Sophie.

Theatre

• 1998: The Talented Mr. Ripley was adapted for the stage as a play of same name by playwright Phyllis Nagy. It was revived in 2010.
• 2013: Strangers on a Train was adapted as a play of same name by playwright Craig Warner.

Radio

• 2002: A four-episode radio drama of The Cry of the Owl was broadcast by BBC Radio 4, with voice acting by John Sharian as Robert Forester, Joanne McQuinn as Jenny Theirolf, Adrian Lester as Greg Wyncoop, and Matt Rippy as Jack Neilsen.
• 2009: All five books of the "Ripliad" were dramatized by BBC Radio 4, with Ian Hart voicing Tom Ripley.
• 2014: A five-segment dramatization of Carol (aka The Price of Salt) was broadcast by BBC Radio 4, with voice acting by Miranda Richardson as Carol Aird and Andrea Deck as Therese Belivet.
• 2019: A five-episode broadcast of selected short stories (One for the Islands, A Curious Suicide, The Terrors of Basket-Weaving, The Man Who Wrote Books In His Head, The Baby Spoon) by BBC Radio 4.

Novels, films, plays, and art about Highsmith

Novels

• Dawson, Jill (2016). The Crime Writer. Sceptre. ISBN 978-1444731118.

Graphic Novels

• Ellis, Grace; Templer, Hannah (2022). Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). New York: Abrams ComicArts. ISBN 978-1419744334.

Films

• Highsmith: Her Secret Life (2004), made for television documentary by Hugh Thomson, BBC Four.
  • Highsmith: Her Secret Life, "notes on the film", Hugh Thomson, BBC, 2004.
• Loving Highsmith (2022), theatrical documentary by Eva Vitija, Ensemble Film GmbH.

Plays

• Murray-Smith, Joanna (2015). Switzerland. Dramatists Play Service. ISBN 978-0-8222-3435-7. (First presented at Sydney Theatre Company in November 2014).

Art

• Bodman, Sarah; Campbell, Nancy (2021). "Dinner and a Rose". UWE Bristol Research Repository. University of the West of England. (A tribute to the food and drinks mentioned in The Talented Mr. Ripley.)

See also

• Ruth Rendell: A "mistress of suspense" contemporary of Highsmith for whom Highsmith acknowledged rarely admitted admiration. Rendell explored characters and themes similar to Highsmith's.

Further reading

• Bradford, Richard (January 19, 2021). "Patricia Highsmith's Confessions and Rebellions at Yaddo". Literary Hub. Retrieved May 14, 2023.
• Dirda, Michael (July 2, 2009). This Woman Is Dangerous. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
• Doll, Jen (December 4, 2015). "The Bizarre True Story Behind "The Talented Mr. Ripley"". Mental Floss. Archived from the original on August 8, 2018. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
• Dupont, Joan (June 12, 1988). Criminal Pursuits. The New York Times. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
• Helmore, Edward (October 26, 2019). Diaries expose ‘strong brew’ of Ripley novelist Patricia Highsmith's dark thoughts. The Guardian. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
• McCann, Sean (April 1, 2011). “Frequently as a rat has orgasms”. New York City in the '40s, Wesleyan University. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
• Michaud, Jon (January 25, 2010). "Book Club: Highsmith and The New Yorker". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 24, 2017.
• Morgan, Kim (December 4, 2015). The Gnarly Allure of Patricia Highsmith. The Daily Beast. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
• Perrin, Tom (December 18, 2012). On Patricia Highsmith. Post45 (Yale University). Retrieved March 12, 2016.
• Piepenbring, Dan (January 19, 2015). A Dissatisfaction with Life. The Paris Review. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
• Rayner, Richard (July 17, 2011). Paperback Writers: Classic Patricia Highsmith. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 18, 2016.
• Schenkar, Joan (February 25, 2016). What Patricia Highsmith did for love: 'The Price of Salt' and the secrets behind 'Carol'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
• Shipley, Diane (April 1, 2014). Patricia Highsmith's criminal neglect. The Guardian. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
• Siegel, Ed (July 4, 2004). "In her novels, Patricia Highsmith compellingly charts gay sensibility". The Boston Globe. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
• Smith, Nathan (November 19, 2015). When Patricia Highsmith Offered Gay Readers a Hopeful Ending. The New Republic. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
• Tonkin, Boyd (December 7, 2015). 'Carol', Patricia Highsmith, and how gay literature found its voice in the 1950s. The Independent. Retrieved March 5, 2016.

Books

• Rzepka, Charles J.; Horsley, Lee, eds. (2010). A Companion to Crime Fiction. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 6, 40–41, 84, 160–162, 193–194, 503–509. ISBN 978-1444317923.

External links

• Patricia Highsmith Papers – Swiss Literary Archives. Swiss National Library, 2006.
• Patricia Highsmith – Exhibition of the Swiss National Library. March–September 2006, Swiss National Library, March 13, 2006.
• Patricia Highsmith : photographs from the exhibition. Swiss Literary Archives, Swiss National Library, December 1, 2006. (archive)
• Choose Your Highsmith (The Patricia Highsmith Recommendation Engine). W. W. Norton & Company.
• Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery (UK publishers). Existential Ennui, 2013.
• Patricia Highsmith gallery by René Burri, Magnum Photos, 1988.
• Patricia Highsmith interview by Naim Attallah, Naim Attallah Online, Quartet Books, 1993.
• Works by or about Patricia Highsmith Archived October 18, 2020, at the Wayback Machine in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Patricia Highsmith at IMDb

Audio interviews

• Thrillers and Crime Fiction, Patricia Highsmith interview on Audio Interviews, BBC Four, December 3, 1972 (archive)
• Patricia Highsmith, interview with Roy Plomley, Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, April 21, 1979.
• The Black House by Patricia Highsmith, interview with Peter Clayton, Meridian, BBC World Service, August 8, 1980.
• Patricia Highsmith on her Thrilling Fiction, interview with Terry Gross, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, NPR, October 27, 1987.
• Patricia Highsmith, interview with Don Swaim, Book Beat, WCBS-Radio (via Wired for Books, Ohio University), October 29, 1987. (archive) ( Page will play audio when loaded)

• Patricia Highsmith, In Conversation with Michael Dibdin, ICA talks, Institute of Contemporary Arts, September 27, 1991.