PATRICIA HIGHSMITH
Patricia Highsmith was born in Forth Worth, Texas, in 1921, and became interested in human behavior from an early age. She studied English, Latin, and Greek at Barnard College and was reclusive, despite being attracted to both men and women. She fostered negative emotions throughout her life and was outspokenly anti-Semitic. She achieved instant success when she published Strangers on a Train in 1950, which became a movie (filmed by Alfred Hitchcock). The novel explores the idea that anybody is capable of murder and the novel's success launched Highsmith's career in noir fiction. Highsmith went on to publish other books, including The Price of Salt in 1953 and The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1955. Highsmith received numerous awards, such as the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Award of the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain, Le Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, and the Edgar Allan Poe Award. On February 4, 1955, Highsmith died in Switzerland and today, her literary records are kept in Basel.
1. Winterson, Jeanette. "Patricia Highsmith, Hiding in Plain Sight." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Dec. 2009. Web. 16 May 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/books/review/Winterson-t.html?pagewanted=all>.
2. Highsmith, Patricia. Strangers on a Train. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. Print.
An incredible study of psychological torture and how fine the membrane is between normality and the underlying darkness.
Tana French
Strangers on a Train is a moral-vertigo thriller: Crime and Punishment for a post-atomic age.
Tom Nolan
