The Crime Writer

by Jill Dawson

In 1964, the eccentric American novelist Patricia Highsmith is hiding out in a cottage in Suffolk, to concentrate on her writing and escape her fans. She has another motive too - a secret romance with a married lover based in London.

Unfortunately it soon becomes clear that all her demons have come with her. Prowlers, sexual obsessives, frauds, imposters, suicides and murderers: the tropes of her fictions clamour for her attention, rudely intruding on her peaceful Suffolk retreat. After the arrival of Ginny, an enigmatic young journalist bent on interviewing her, events take a catastrophic turn. Except, as always in Highsmith's troubled life, matters are not quite as they first appear . . .

Masterfully recreating Highsmith's much exercised fantasies of murder and madness, Jill Dawson probes the darkest reaches of the imagination in this novel - at once a brilliant portrait of a writer and an atmospheric, emotionally charged, riveting tale.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Historical, LGBT, Suspense

256 pages, Hardcover

First published June 2, 2016

About the author

Jill Dawson was born in Durham and grew up in Staffordshire, Essex and Yorkshire. She read American Studies at the University of Nottingham, then took a series of short-term jobs in London before studying for an MA in Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. In 1997 she was the British Council Writing Fellow at Amherst College, Massachussets.

Her writing life began as a poet, her poems being published in a variety of small press magazines, and in one pamphlet collection, White Fish with Painted Nails (1990). She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1992.

She edited several books for Virago, including The Virago Book of Wicked Verse (1992) and The Virago Book of Love Letters (1994). She has also edited a collection of short stories, School Tales: Stories by Young Women (1990), and with co-editor Margo Daly, Wild Ways: New Stories about Women on the Road (1998) and Gas and Air: Tales of Pregnancy and Birth (2002). She is the author of one book of non-fiction for teenagers, How Do I Look? (1991), which deals with the subject of self-esteem.

Jill Dawson is the author of five novels: Trick of the Light (1996); Magpie (1998), for which she won a London Arts Board New Writers Award; Fred and Edie (2000); Wild Boy (2003); and most recently, Watch Me Disappear (2006). Fred and Edie is based on the historic murder trial of Thompson and Bywaters, and was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Novel Award and the 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Her next novel, The Great Lover, is due for publication in early 2009.

Jill Dawson has taught Creative Writing for many years and was recently the Creative Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. She lives with her family in the Cambridgeshire Fens.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before starting this review, I must confess I have never read anything by Patricia Highsmith. Obviously, like all avid readers, she has long been on my radar and I have meant to read her novels, but never got around to them. However, I have read other books by Jill Dawson and enjoyed them, so I came to this without any preconceptions about how she portrayed Highsmith. If you are a devotee of Patricia Highsmith and possibly later feel that this is not a good portrait of her, I can only say that this has left me eager to read both her books and her biography. In that sense, I feel it is a sympathetic portrayal. In some ways though, I am glad that I really did not come to this novel with any idea about the ‘real’ Patricia Highsmith - this is, obviously, a fusion of biographical fact and fiction and, as such, is not meant to be necessarily accurate in every aspect of the authors life.

This book begins in Sussex, where Patricia Highsmith is living in Bridge Cottage. It is 1964 and Beatlemania is the talk of the times, but Pat only wants peace and quiet. She was previously living in France, where she received anonymous letters – a possible stalker. Now, she has her friend Ronnie, who visits and, apart from that, wants only to be left alone. That, however, is easier said than done. Invading her peace are nosy neighbour, Mrs Ingham and a young journalist; Virginia Smythson-Balby.

One of the reasons that Pat longs to be left alone is that she is having an affair with a married woman, called Sam. Sam lives in London with her husband, Gerald and has a young daughter. Meetings involve furtive calls in phone boxes, cancellations, frustration and jealousy. In between, Pat works on her writing – not caring for the label, “crime writer” as she insists she writes suspense novels, goes for trips with Ronnie, watches her beloved snails, muses on her childhood and relationship with her mother and drinks too much…

I have no wish to spoil this novel by writing too much. Patricia Highsmith comes alive in this book for me – prickly, private and living a life which sometimes steps into fantasy, she struggles to retain her privacy against events which conspire to drag her, unwillingly, from undercover and into the spotlight. This is a clever, well written and well realised novel. It is not necessary to have any knowledge about Patricia Highsmith before you read this book – but when you finish it, you will undoubtedly want to know more.

[BrokenTune · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading more books by and about Patricia Highsmith over the past year, so when The Crime Writer crossed my path, I had to give it a try.

In the book, Jill Dawson uses Patricia Highsmith as the lead character. Dawson thoroughly researched Highsmith's life and work, which - from what I gather - makes for a believable character in the book, although of course we will never know as Highsmith herself was a bit of a recluse (by her own choice) and a bit of a mystery. All this adds to the credibility of Dawson's imagined character of Pat.

As for the story, it describes Pat withdrawing to the English countryside, trying to work away from the distractions of her fans and her family.
During her stay, she seemed to be pursued by a stalker and by a journalist, whose motives are not clear. Is she being investigated? Is her clandestine relationship with a married woman being put at risk of discovery? Are all of these things connected?

In time, Pat is entangled in a web of intrigue and concealment.

It's an engaging enough plot, and my only criticisms are these:

1. Part of the plot strongly reminded me of Sarah Waters The Paying Guests, which I actually enjoyed but it did take away some of the plot development.

2. Although this is a fictional account, some of the plot hinges on actual facts in Highsmith's own life, and as such I could not help but notice a couple of anachronisms. The most, to me, irritating of which is in connection with Highsmith's book The Price of Salt (later re-published as Carol). Highsmith published the book under a pseudonym, and it was not widely known (according to Andrew Wilson's biography Beautiful Shadow) until much later than when The Crime Writer is set. Accoding to Wilson's biography, which is largely based on Highsmith's own diaries and records, Highsmith was not aware that anyone (other than her immediate family and her publisher) knew she had written The Price of Salt until the 70s after a neighbour of her mother's tried to discuss the book with her. Officially, Highsmith only acknowledged the book at the time of its re-publication in 1990. So, the developments in Dawson's story which involved The Price of Salt threw me a little.

All in all, however, The Crime Writer was an enjoyable way to re-imagine one of the most puzzling and contradictory writers I like to ponder about.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patricia Highsmith hated the term “crime writer”; she preferred to speak of her work as “suspense novels,” animated by the threat of danger. Dawson’s terrific pastiche is set in the early 1960s, when the nomadic Highsmith was living in a remote cottage in Suffolk, England. Beyond the barest biographical facts, though, Dawson has imagined the plot based on Highsmith’s own preoccupations: fear of a prowler, irksome poison-pen letters, imagining what it would be like to commit murder … and snails. In a combination of third- and first-person narration, she shows “Pat” succumbing to alcoholism and paranoia as she carries on affairs with Sam, a married woman, and Ginny, a young journalist who’s obsessed with her. Along the way there are tantalizing glimpses of her childhood in Forth Worth, Texas, including a mother who occasionally abandoned her and called her crazy, a useless stepfather, abuse and hallucinations.

You’re never quite sure as you’re reading what is actually happening in the world of the novel and what only occurs in Highsmith’s imagination, and I’m sure that’s deliberate on Dawson’s part. This counts as one of the most gripping, compulsive books I’ve encountered this year. I’d recommend it to fans of The Paying Guests and Eileen, but also connoisseurs of Highsmith’s own work—you’ll spot the parallels Dawson spells out in the acknowledgments if you know her oeuvre well, but the links to The Talented Mr. Ripley are especially clear. A cracking read.

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where has this book been?!!! It was wonderful. Have immediately added Jill Dawson other books to my TBR pile. For a suspense, crime reader this has ticked all my boxes.
Dawson has painted a wonderfully realistic portrait of suspense writer Patricia Highsmith who has fled to Suffolk to a cottage to write her next novel. She is also contending with a strange woman named Ginny who claims to be a journalist turning up at her house, an affair with a married woman that is being hidden from the public and peculiar letters being sent to her from a stranger that are scaring her. Is she going mad? Is this actually happening? What is real and what is false? I just ADORED Dawson's writing, it flowed so easily in my head, the story was creepy and there are numerous references to Highsmith's novels woven into the fabric of the story which made it even more attractive to me.

[Stephen Goldenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the premise of this novel - making crime writer, Patricia Highsmith the main character in a crime novel and using real biographical details along with aspects of her various novels to investigate the writing and reading of such novels. Jill Dawson bases the events in the novel on the period in 1964 when Highsmith had isolated herself in a cottage in Suffolk while trying to finish a couple of books.
There was a lot that I enjoyed in the novel but my problem with it was that it fell between too many stools - not very satisfying purely as a crime novel and, while fascinating about Highsmith's dysfunctional childhood, failed lesbian relationships and generally anti-social persona, it left me wanting to read a proper biography and some Highsmith novels I haven't read before, especially her lesbian novel 'The Price of Salt' (having very much enjoyed film of the book 'Carol').
The most weird and fascinating thing about Highsmith was her collecting and breeding snails which she frequently carried around with her in her handbag.

[Charles Finch · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review from USA Today

*

All great writers’ biographies are less interesting than their work, but Patricia Highsmith gave hers a run for its money. Born in Texas to a mother who told her daughter with a laugh that she’d drunk turpentine to try to induce a miscarriage, the author of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” had two ambitions growing up: to move to Europe and to write a book. She achieved them both with panache. In “The Crime Writer,” Highsmith, who was gay – her groundbreaking novel “The Price of Salt,” about two female lovers, was the basis for the 2015 film Carol – is hiding out in a tiny English village, occasionally seeing her mistress. One of their clandestine meetings ends in a brutal crime. Highsmith trapped in a Highsmith novel, in other words: a good conceit. Dawson’s book feels airless in places, but it’s also sharp and absorbing, with brilliant imaginative flights and a fine sensitivity to its subject’s thorny, wounded, uncanny mind.

[Rissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

She left the city for an escape but the drama and mystery followed her.

I wasnt connected with the characters . The plot and climax were slow going and i wanted more drama and action and crime.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jill Dawson, an award winning British novelist and poet has turned her attention with a scholarly expertise on the life of celebrated American author Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995). “The Crime Writer: A Novel” introduces a deeply intense, complex fictional account of Highsmith while renting a cottage in the Suffolk English countryside. The novel portrays Highsmith, writing in seclusion: “Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction” (1966)-- also drinking heavily with a highly disturbing and distorted thought process.

Highsmith was having an affair with Samantha Gosforth, her husband Gerald was a wealthy volatile English businessman who was guilty on occasion of domestic violence, which was witnessed by their young daughter Minty. Highsmith simmered with an internal rage against Gerald, and it brought back her own depressing childhood memories at the hand of her neglectful mother, who abandoned Highsmith frequently in the care of her maternal grandmother, in Ft. Worth, Texas. Sam would voice her concern over Minty, and later use motherhood as an excuse as the reason why she couldn’t spend more time with Highsmith. This deepened Highsmith’s despair, and her intake of scotch and whiskey in her morning coffee as she chain smoked Gauloises.

Many celebrity authors relished their fame and fortune, Highsmith was not such a person. Terribly resentful of her nosy elderly neighbor, and the young perky journalist Virginia Symthson-Balby “Ginny” that had impressive knowledge of all Highsmith’s public appearances and literary works, knew her every move to the point of being a stalker, also was commissioned to write an article about Highsmith. Ginny praised “The Price of Salt” (1952) and compared favorably it to the lesbian cult classic: “The Well of Loneliness” (1928). Unfazed, Highsmith observed of her writing on her then novel: “Violence is not an act, it’s a feeling. Some people give into it, others never feel it. Murders committed are sordid, spontaneous and ugly coming from places of intense hatred and anger. Not a cold blooded calculation, an ultimate anti-social act.”

When Gerald turns up intoxicated at Highsmith’s home in the wee morning hours, he is convinced he will find Sam there with another man. As Sam soothes his fears, Highsmith has no qualms of concealing her extreme hatred of him. The storyline explodes with a frightening act and takes a sinister turn, as Dawson probed and explored Highsmith’s past and how it related to this unpredictable storyline of madness and mental decline. It helps to be familiar with Highsmith’s life and works to fully appreciate this engrossing dark novel. 3* GOOD.
*With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.

[Gianni · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Il talento del crimine Jill Dawson restituisce uno stralcio romanzato del periodo inglese di Patricia Highsmith, collocato all’inizio degli anni ’60. Non conosco molto l'opera della Highsmith, a parte una raccolta di racconti (Piccoli racconti di misoginia) e Il talento di Mr. Ripley e ammetto di non aver colto tutti i riferimenti e le citazioni ai suoi romanzi che la Dawson dissemina nel racconto, ma tutto emerge ampiamente dal testo e la lettura non ne risente.

La tensione rimane alta sino al termine, con tutte le ossessioni, le manie, le debolezze, la fragilità della Highsmith in risalto che ne rivelano i lati oscuri: la sua misoginia, il rapporto irrisolto e conflittuale con la madre, le allucinazioni, la solitudine e la misantropia al limite dell’autismo. E il suo rapporto con l’omosessualità, scoperta quando Patricia era dodicenne e in un periodo certo non facile per manifestare pubblicamente i propri orientamenti sessuali (e l’amore lesbico alimenta ampiamente questa narrazione). La Dawson gioca abilmente nel far raccontare in prima persona la Highsmith e nell’incrociare e integrare i ricordi con continui flashback, che mostrano quanto sia labile, e alla fine irreversibile, il confine tra il sentire e immaginare la violenza e il praticarla sino ad uccidere. E il dubbio se questo sottile discrimine tra l’immaginato e l’agito sia stato effettivamente oltrepassato rimarrà anche alla chiusura del libro. Non so se la Highsmith avrebbe apprezzato questo omaggio, ma è sicuramente un buon thriller ricco di una suspense particolare.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exquisitely written with an ending that gropes in the dark for believability. Wondering also about the choice of first person: I've never pictured Highsmith as the type to dwell on her childhood, however lousy it might have been. I did think her acid observations were spot on and enjoyed it more when action forced Dawson to put more distance between reader and character. I'd venture Pat would have preferred it that way. As far bodice-ripping tales of murder centered around a shared, secret love for The Price of Salt go though, it's a win.

[Jacki (Julia Flyte) · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1964, the author Patricia Highsmith was living in the Suffolk countryside and writing. Jill Dawson has taken this as her starting point to concoct a crime novel which is entirely reminiscent of Highsmith's own stories. It's a clever literary device and it's well executed. You don't need to be familiar with Highsmith's writing to enjoy this, but you will enjoy it far more if you are.

Patricia Highsmith is probably best known for the stories that became films (The Talented Mr Ripley, Ripley's Game, Carol) and also for writing the screenplay of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. Her characters are unsettling: good people disappoint, everyone has a streak of evil. I was familiar with her writing but I knew little about her as an individual - for example, she had an obsession with snails. It's fascinating to read the author's acknowledgments at the end about the different strands of Highsmith's life and writing that inspired this novel.

The plot of The Crime Writer (somewhat ironical given that Highsmith hated to be described in that way), concerns her relationship with two women. There is Sam, her elegant and unhappily married lover, and there is Ginny, a pushy yet evasive young journalist who comes to interview her. When a murder is committed, it will impact on all of their lives.

I really liked the writing in this book and I thought that the plot was very clever, but it also felt very disjointed. The crime felt almost secondary and I wanted it to have more focus. Ultimately I just found this a little dragged out and lacking momentum.

[Ollie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea behind this novel is genius: what if Patricia Highsmith, famed for crime novels written in the 50s and 60s ("The Talented Mr Ripley", "Strangers on a Train"), was actually herself involved in a crime? And what if this crime had to do with the secret lesbian affairs she led all her life?

Unfortunately, this is a crime novel that wants to be literary, doesn't come up with any memorable characters and spends far too much time inside a frankly tedious Pat. The ending is so anticlimactic it's the opposite of anything Highsmith ever wrote.

The writing itself is beautiful but the story begs to be a thriller and not a riff on snails (which I think the real Pat collected), the art of the crime novel, and an endless list of what Pat should or should not do while she sits in a cottage in Suffolk and downs bottles of booze.

[Ahtims · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very dark and morbid book.
Distressed me to read how Patricia Highsmith was portrayed. I have a mental image of all female crime authors as teddy bearish dames who are Miss Marple like in real life .
I listened to the audio of this book in bits and pieces in an illness induced daze and somehow my illness was conducive to the atmosphere of the book.
Would recommend this only to those who love their fiction dark, disturbing and slow paced , almost to the point of being soporific.

[dammydoc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dopo il soggiorno parigino, Patricia ha scelto quel cottage sperduto nel Suffolk, ad un’ora e mezza di strada da Londra, per potersi dedicare tranquillamente al suo nuovo romanzo e al manuale di scrittura a cui sta lavorando, in compagnia delle sue amate lumache, dell’inseparabile diario, delle sigarette, del whisky, e con la speranza di poter trascorrere qualche giornata con Sam, la sua amante, strappandola al suo inferno familiare con Gerald, marito violento, uomo viscido ed insignificante. E invece si ritrova sempre alle costole quella dannata Virginia Smythson-Balby, giornalista curiosa, appariscente, eccitata dall’idea di poter intervistare la famosa Patricia Highsmith, “scrittrice di gialli” - definizione che lei tra l’altro detesta, trovandola scorretta e riduttiva - e che secondo il suo amico Ronnie sarebbe in realtà solo a caccia di informazioni per scrivere una biografia non autorizzata. Eppure qualcosa di quella donna le suona stranamente familiare…

Jill Dawson, scrittrice e poetessa britannica, docente in corsi di scrittura creativa e giornalista freelance, mette in scena ben più di un semplice omaggio ad una autrice riconosciuta come fonte di ispirazione e di cui si dichiara ammiratrice sfegatata: Patricia Highsmith non diviene solo la protagonista di un racconto di suspense á la Patricia Highsmith; nelle pagine de Il talento del crimine - già vincitore dell’East Anglian Book Award nel 2016 - viene tratteggiata con delicatezza e partecipazione la complessità dell’universo psicologico della scrittrice statunitense (autrice de Il talento di Mr. Ripley e Carol), segnato da sentimenti violenti, da una personalità dotata di una non comune capacità di intuizione e di immersione nei più oscuri recessi dell’animo umano, capace di elaborazioni ossessive nelle loro svariate declinazioni, preda di insopprimibili angosce unite alla inconsapevole, straziante messa in atto, nelle relazioni interpersonali, di dinamiche finalizzate a rivivere incessantemente esperienze traumatiche…

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https://www.mangialibri.com/il-talent...

[Alesha Cary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe if you’re a Highsmith fan, you can see the brilliance of this book. Me? I’ve seen the book a lot like the little gray man-thing in the novel (if you as a reader are going, “Wait, what?”...don’t feel alone. I spent the whole book that way.). It’s been lurking over there in the shadows, reminding me I needed to finish it before I could move on to freedom. I managed it tonight. Hallelujah. I’m delivered.

Again, maybe this is a good read to those who love Highsmith. I just never got the greatness. I loathed this character. She’s really quite despicable, a horrible childhood with cascading revelations of abuse notwithstanding. She’s just a reprehensible person. I was kind of hoping one of the plots she was cooking up to kill others would turn on her. But no. She lives.

In a nutshell, this is just a book about a horrible but talented person. Perhaps the author is guessing at the why. I don’t know that she gets there. The trouble with a book like this is that, while it is literary, there is no way to engage with the story. I don’t need a potboiler. I don’t need what typically passes for suspense. I just need one character with some dimension that I can believe in. Didn’t find it in this book. My favorite thing has been the last page...(because it was over).

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uneasy Read

Jill Dawson is an interesting and challenging novelist. Here as in The Great Lover she slips into the skin of a real characte, this time the American writer of psycholocal novels Patricia Highsmith and the reader is caught in a world of paranoia fuelled by alcoholism and closet sexuality.

The narration moves from first to third person and the narrator is to say the very least unreliable. Murders happen or do they? Highsmith is racked with anger and guilt displaying many of the characteristics of her abused, traumatised childhood with a toxic mother and lascivious father,

Dawson is excellent on period and detail, the parochialism of the small village near Aldeburgh, the clothes, the atmosphere of the village pub and Highsmith"s fascination with snails.

An interesting, skillfully wrought tale

[Eve · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

My opinion of this book is pretty middling, to be honest. I enjoyed parts of it, but it's not really my style of writing. I had some issues with how it was presented, especially with the inconsistent chapter lengths (one was 100 pages! and another was only 2 or 3!) and it alternated between first and third person depending on the chapter, but there was no rhyme or reason for this that I could see. Everything was ultimately centered around Pat, so I don't see why it couldn't have been in first person the entire time.

There were quite a few flashbacks and streams of consciousness throughout the book, explaining both Pat's past and her predisposition for "madness," I suppose. These glimpses were interesting, but sometimes they came out of nowhere and I wasn't sure what was happening in the past vs present of the book. It wasn't too difficult, but one scene in particular (her mother and the coat hanger scene) threw me off because it told the aftermath before it actually showed the scene.

Ultimately, I didn't feel very invested in the book. There were some great action parts, but I felt after the big event in the first 1/3 of the book that it got pretty boring for a bit. I didn't feel motivated to pick it up and keep reading. I think the story could have been very interesting, but it just took too much of a literary approach for my tastes. I am rating it the way I am though because it was well written, and the parts I liked, I really liked. It just wasn't for me.

[Lisa Tuttle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always uneasy about fiction about real people, especially when those people were alive during my lifetime, so I had to wonder if I really wanted to read what sounded like a very Highsmith-type suspense novel with Patricia Highsmith as the main character.....but although early on I wondered if I would finish it, my reservations were soon overcome as I was caught up in the story (which is a very clever balancing act) and realized this is one of those books that could not have been written about a fictional "Highsmith-type" writer, as much the pleasure and power of it comes from the reality of Highsmith's character, life and also the books she wrote. It is extremely well-written - the prose is lovely, and the writer evokes sinister atmospheres as well as Highsmith herself. Having already read one biography of Patricia Highsmith I was aware of how closely Dawson was sticking to the facts of her life; I just didn't know (until I read the notes at the end) how much or how little she was making up. It is quite metafictional, this artful blend of fact and fiction, also entertaining and absorbing -- I think it would work even for a reader who was less familiar with Highsmith and her works, and for fans like me, it is a treat.

[Helen White · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suspect I would have enjoyed this more if I'd known more of Patricia Highsmith's novels. Instead the mix of truth, fiction and downright insane ramblings all mix together so you have no clue what's really going on.

A combination of fiction and biography about fiction and biography. Highsmith's novels blend in with her real life, the truth muddled up with the fiction. Did Pat murder her lover's husband? Did the snails she kept take over the house? Did she get involved with a stalker? Who knows

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Patricia Highsmith serves as the main character in this beguiling suspense novel that is largely influenced by her own work.

[Marina Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing glimpse into the writer's psyche (or as we might imagine it). Quite unsettling.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good thriller, probably best for Patricia Highsmith fans. I've never read a Highsmith book, and from reviews I see I've missed a lot of the depth of this book. A good portrait of an alcoholic beginning to lose some sense of the world around her.

[Ruth Seeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

No one can do creepy like Patricia Highsmith, so it's not surprising that a novel based on Highsmith's sojourn in Suffolk doesn't quite manage to summon the same feelings of dread. This was a highly entertaining and near-compulsive read. Perhaps as a novel it tries to be too many things at once: a tribute to Highsmith, her novels, and her eccentricities (first I'd heard about the snail obsession); a novel about a lesbian embroiled in an unhappy affair with a married woman, and a thriller or crime novel. If one's reach should always exceed one's grasp, this novel does precisely that. It's compelling because the Highsmith character - damaged by both parents and her stepfather, as well as by growing up at a time when being a lesbian was not accepted - is fascinating. So read it for that. But if you're looking for Highsmith-calibre, silent-scream horror that builds and builds and builds, you won't find it here.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know Patricia Highsmith before discovering this novel whose cover (a small cat putting delicately its small legs on a typewriter) has aroused my curiosity. And what a chance! I really liked this novel. We discover the life of Patricia Highsmith during her Suffolk period where the english cottage-country atmosphere is very easily imaginable.

The atmosphere thriller on the background of hidden homosexual romance is also well described. Just like the conflicting relation of the queen mother with her daughter, Patricia Highsmith. The latter being a tormented and alcoholic person, finding comfort with her snails, her Ronnie and love relationships that obviously don't make it easy.

I also adhered to the melancholy atmosphere that rocked the novel with the visions and memories of Patricia's past.

[Siegrist · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fictional version of Pat Highsmith, the main character of this novel, ruminates towards the end of the book "every writer knows a characters is both real and a secret ungodly form from somewhere esle entirely". It's a interestingly self-conscious observation in the novel that morphs the biography of Highsmith into her fiction. The voice is compelling as is the setting. An intersting read about the creative process and it's dark heart.

[Allan Doe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Plodding.

[Rachel Ruddick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The crime writer by Jill Dawson has a fascinating premise. We follow the life of a fictionalised Patricia Highsmith who then writes a story of herself imagining that she kills someone. In this "book within a book" the events follow her real life incredibly closely and uncharacteristic of Highsmith these parts are in first person. The dual narrative between the novel's "real" world and the story she writes is incredibly blurred. It's not clear where one ends and the other begins. In addition there is a character that is writing a biography of Patricia Highsmith, that appears in both the real world and the story. The fact that they are both stories in Jill Dawson's novel is a noteworthy irony. That means this stories has not one but three biographies happening at the same time. 1. Jill Dawson's biography of Highsmith. 2. The fictional Highsmith's story of herself. 3. The character Gill's biography that we never get to see.

So naturally the troubles of writing a biography is a theme, and especially the ethics of privacy is central to the book. All of the characters from a journalist to the authors mother are intrusive forces in Highsmiths life. Even worse, much of the story rests on a creepy super fan who has taken her love of the author too far. Highsmith has a fraught relationship with the media, or for anyone who has an opinion on her. "Can't they leave me alone until I'm dead?" she sighs. Yet is that what Highsmith thinks or Jill Dawson granting herself an atonement, since the real writer is conveniently passed? Yet if nothing she is self conscious of her issues as a biographer.

The device of a book within a book creates a universe in which the famous suspense writer does something that she insists her books are not about, committing a crime. She also insists that women tend not to commit murder but it turns out that she is uniquely disposed to the dark glamour of a act that few people ever commit. Yet here is a crucial question. Is she capable? Since the murder of the novel is committed in her fictional self we never know if she is capable of real murder. The book is mostly just one big hypothetical fantasy that the author immersed herself in. I don't think she knows herself. So do we really learn anything about Highsmith in "The Crime Writer?" Does that opaqueness diminish the book? What is the role of a biography if you don't learn anything about the writer? I would conclude that if nothing else, Jill Dawson paints Highsmith as essentially a chronic fantasist. The entire story she invents is a coping mechanism for her breakup with her girlfriend. She blames herself for a suicide of her partners husband and so rewrites herself as the literal murderer. Meanwhile her alcoholism is indicative that reality is too difficult for her. Finally, her social isolation is a retreat away from people and the human realm. Beyond that Patricia Highsmith is a mystery, a gruff and angry person who gives the world dark and emotionally chaotic works of fiction. No wonder then that a fictional biography has had to have so many layers, and to only have one foot stuck in reality. The other foot is resolutely planted in a shadowy realm, where unlike "The Price of Salt" the only true love that is possible is not by humans but between the snails that live of her windowsill. -R

[Michael Rumney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in 1964 Suffolk novelist Patricia Highsmith is trying to finish 2 books when a Journalist, Ginny wants to interview her. An engaging fictionalised tale of a part of Highsmith's life. It becomes apparent towards the end of the book Highsmith isn't sure of events that have happened beforehand so she becomes an unreliable narrator as in the Talented Mister Ripley. They are subtle nods and references to other Highsmith novels which aren't always apparent and thankfully Dawson explains these in the Acknowledgements section of the book.
I did like the references to Highsmith's fascination with snails and when describing objects in the book like telephone boxes and pavements she uses the american expressions booths and sidewalk.
As a crime novel or suspense thriller as Highsmith would have described the book loses some of its sparkle but non the less the book is worth reading.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book, mainly because I'm a big Patricia Highsmith fan. Highsmith is famous for writing "Strangers on a Train" and "The Talented Mr Ripley". So Jill Dawson got the idea to write this fiction about her. You have to wonder if Highsmith would approve but it's an interesting idea and I like how she presented it.

I know we read historical fiction all the time and we can appreciate the real and fictional aspects of it. But it's another story altogether when someone creates a whole plot and characters around a real person who's not really a historical character. Odd, but it worked for me. The character Dawson created is extremely cynical, a big drinker, gay, and a misanthrope. Not sure if Highsmith embodied all those characteristics but I'll bite.

[Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My oh my. What a read. Jill Dawson did a brilliant job merging Highsmith works into this read. There are several comments about first person as Highsmith shares deep and dark observations from her childhood. I do not believe the reader can grasp that dept of the character any other way. In Highsmith form, there are flawed characters that have the reader feeling with either a head shake or a oh my gosh. The main point is that you feel. Patricia Highsmith is presented as a complex, soul searching, distorted, alcoholic, lesbian, womanizer with a disturbing dark side.

The cleverness of the story within a story is enthralling and suspenseful. Ronnie, Sam, and Virginia are important characters to the story as they reach out with care and love to Patricia. Though an unsettling read, it is truly engrossing.