Patricia Highsmith

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 in a career spanning nearly five decades, and her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her writing was influenced by existentialist literature and questioned notions of identity and popular morality. She was dubbed "the poet of apprehension" by novelist Graham Greene.

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, and mostly raised in her infancy by her maternal grandmother, Highsmith was taken to New York City at the age of six to live with her mother and stepfather. After graduating from Barnard College in 1942, she worked as a writer for comic books while writing her own short stories and novels in her spare time. Her literary breakthrough came with the publication of her first novel Strangers on a Train (1950) which was adapted into a 1951 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Her 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley was well received in the United States and Europe, cementing her reputation as a major writer of psychological thrillers.

In 1963, Highsmith moved to England where her critical reputation continued to grow. Following the breakdown of her relationship with a married Englishwoman, she moved to France in 1967 to try to rebuild her life. Her sales were now higher in Europe than in the United States which her agent attributed to her subversion of the conventions of American crime fiction. She moved to Switzerland in 1982 where she continued to publish new work that increasingly divided critics. The last years of her life were marked by ill health and she died of aplastic anemia and lung cancer in Switzerland in 1995.

The Times said of Highsmith: "she puts the suspense story in a toweringly high place in the hierarchy of fiction."

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. 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. 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.

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".

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, which had principal rights to her work, was appointed literary executor of the estate. and nine years later in the U.S. by W. W. Norton. It sold 50,000 copies in France within six weeks of her death.

Personal life

Health

Highsmith had anorexia as a teenager and episodes of depression throughout her life.

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Highsmith was ambitious and socially active in the 1940s but always preferred smaller gatherings to large crowds and public functions. Despite her reputation as a recluse in her later years, she had a circle of friends, neighbors, and admirers she regularly saw in France and Switzerland, and she frequently corresponded with friends in Europe and America.

Highsmith lived alone for most of her adult life, saying in a 1991 interview, "I choose to live alone because my imagination functions better when I don't have to speak with people." Although she preferred her personal life to remain private, she took no steps to avoid the posthumous availability of her diaries and notebooks in which she recorded the motivations of her behavior.

Highsmith called herself "basically polygamous" In 1970 she wrote to a friend: "We all become reconciled to being queer and prefer life that way." Catherwood lost custody of her daughter in divorce proceedings that involved tape-recorded lesbian trysts in hotel rooms.

Highsmith was an avowed antisemite; she called herself a "Jew hater" and described The Holocaust as "the semicaust" and "Holocaust, Inc."

Religion

When young, Highsmith was influenced by the religious views of her mother, who was a Christian Scientist. She rejected Christian Science at 21 but still believed in God. In what BBC 2's The Late Show presenter Sarah Dunant called a "literary coming out" after 38 years of denial,The paperback version of the novel sold nearly one million copies before its 1990 reissue. The Price of Salt is the only Highsmith novel in which no violent crime takes place and, according to Harrison, the only one in which sexual relations are portrayed openly and positively.

Themes, style and genre

Themes

Highsmith's themes were influenced by Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka, and the existentialism of Sartre and Camus. 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." 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." 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."

Awards and nominations

1946 : O. Henry Award, Best First Story, for The Heroine (in Harper's Bazaar)
1956 : Edgar Allan Poe Scroll (special award), Mystery Writers of America, for The Talented Mr. Ripley
1977 : for Little Tales of Misogyny (joint winner with illustrator Roland Topor)

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

;Graphic Novels

;Films

Highsmith: Her Secret Life (2004), made for television documentary by Hugh Thomson, BBC Four.
Loving Highsmith (2022), theatrical documentary by Eva Vitija, Ensemble Film GmbH.
In May 2023, Memento International announced that Killer Films was to produce a thriller-biopic about Patricia Highsmith titled The Murderous Miss Highsmith. Directed by Alexandra Pechman, starring Shailene Woodley, Cara Delevingne and Noémie Merlant, the scope of the film would center on her lesbian affairs and alcoholism, with Highsmith's life reimagined as a horror movie.
In January 2023, director Anton Corbijn announced his forthcoming film project, Switzerland. The screenplay by Joanna Murray-Smith, based on her 2014 play of the same name, centers on the final chapter of Highsmith's life in Switzerland, and her relationship with her literary agent, with Helen Mirren set to star as Patricia Highsmith. The film is scheduled to premiere in 2026.

;Plays

Murray-Smith, Joanna (2015). Switzerland. Dramatists Play Service. . (First presented at Sydney Theatre Company in November 2014).

;Art

(A tribute to the food and drinks mentioned in The Talented Mr. Ripley.)

Audio interviews

(via Ohio University Libraries Digital Archives)

Notes

References

External links

Patricia Highsmith Life Papers and Documents, Swiss National Library
Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery (UK publishers). Existential Ennui, 2013.