Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith is an author.
Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short story writer who spent nearly five decades making readers complicit in the thinking of people they should not like. She published 22 novels, including the five books about the charming confidence man Tom Ripley, and her work has been adapted for the screen more than two dozen times. Existentialist writing shaped her, and her books keep pressing on identity and on the gap between conventional morality and what her characters actually want. Graham Greene called her the poet of apprehension, which is about right: the dread in a Highsmith novel comes less from violence than from watching a rationalisation take hold.
Books (6)
Where to start with Patricia Highsmith
Strangers on a Train is the cleanest introduction, a first novel that already has the Highsmith engine running: two men, one bad idea, and a moral slide nobody stops. Then go to The Talented Mr. Ripley, the best thing here by a distance and the book that made her name. The Glass Cell is the bleakest, The Blunderer the most anxious, and Nothing That Meets the Eye collects the stories if you want her at short range.
Patricia Highsmith on CrossBinge
- For fans of: For fans of Patricia Highsmith: what to watch, read and play next
- Companion guide: Film Noir & Neo-Noir: The Complete Guide