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Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith, the nom de plume of Mary Patricia Plangman, was born in Texas, in 1921. She was raised by her grandmother in New York City, but was later taken in by her mother and stepfather. She graduated from Barnard College in 1942 and shortly thereafter became a writer for the comic book series Black Terror. Highsmith’s first novel Strangers on a Train was first published in 1950, and in 1951 Alfred Hitchcock adapted the work for the screen, which helped Highsmith gain literary renown.

Highsmith is most known for the Ripley novels, about a young sexually ambiguous man, named Tom Ripley, who has murderous delusions of grandeur. The first and most famous of these is The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), which was awarded both the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and the Edgar Allan Poe Scroll by the Mystery Writers of America. In 1963, Highsmith relocated to Europe, where she would spend the rest of her life. Some of her most important works include Deep Water (1957), This Sweet Sickness (1960), and The Cry of the Owl (1962).

Highsmith died of leukemia in Switzerland, in 1995.

Related Websites

“This Woman Is Dangerous” - NY Review of Books

Praise

“[Highsmith’s] characters are irrational, and they leap to life in their very lack of reason; suddenly we realize how unbelievably rational most fictional characters are. . . . Highsmith is the poet of apprehension rather than fear.” —Graham Greene

“For some obscure reason, one of our greatest modernist writers, Patricia Highsmith, has been thought of in her own land as a writer of thrillers. She is both. She is certainly one of the most interesting writers of this dismal century.” —Gore Vidal

“Miss Highsmith’s genius is in presenting fantasy’s paradox: successes are not what they seem. . . . Where in the traditional fairy tale the heroine turns the toad into a prince, in Miss Highsmith’s fables the prince becomes a toad—success is nearly always fatal. . . . Combining the best features of the suspense genre with the best of existential fiction—a reflection—the stories are fabulous, in all the senses of that word.” —Paul Theroux

“Patricia Highsmith’s novels are peerlessly disturbing . . . bad dreams that keep us restless and thrashing for the rest of the night.” —Terrence Rafferty, The New Yorker

“Highsmith, who can change reality to nightmare with one well-turned phrase, is a legendary crime writer.” —Les Roberts, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“She writes so fearlessly . . . about human relationships and the human heart. I always have this terrible sense of foreboding . . . you never feel safe.” —Cate Blanchett

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Awards

Named one of Time magazine’s The 50 Greatest Crime Writers: Rule-breaking master of amorality (April 2008)
O. Henry Award for best publication of first story, for “The Heroine” in Harper’s Bazaar (1946)
Edgar Award nominee for best first novel, for Strangers on a Train (1951)
Edgar Award nominee for best novel, for The Talented Mr. Ripley (1956)
Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, for The Talented Mr. Ripley (1957)
Edgar Award nominee for best short story, for “The Terrapin” (1963)
Silver Dagger Award from the Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain (1964)
Grand Prix de l’Humour Noir for L’Amateur d’escargot (1975)
Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture (1990)