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Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith
'My New Year's Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle - may they never give me peace'
PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (New Year's Eve, 1947)
Made famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith is lauded as one of the most influential and celebrated modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books.
The relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality – by parts self-destructive and malicious – and her fiction, has been largely avoided by biographers. She was openly homosexual and wrote the seminal lesbian love story, Carol. In modern times, she would be venerated as a radical exponent of the LGBT community. However, her status as an LGBT icon is undermined by the fact that she was excessively cruel and exploitative of her friends and lovers.
In this new biography, Richard Bradford brings his sharp, incisive style to one of the great and most controversial writers of the twentieth century. He considers Highsmith's bestsellers in the context of her troubled personal life; her alcoholism, licentious sex life, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and abundant self-loathing.
PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (New Year's Eve, 1947)
Made famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith is lauded as one of the most influential and celebrated modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books.
The relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality – by parts self-destructive and malicious – and her fiction, has been largely avoided by biographers. She was openly homosexual and wrote the seminal lesbian love story, Carol. In modern times, she would be venerated as a radical exponent of the LGBT community. However, her status as an LGBT icon is undermined by the fact that she was excessively cruel and exploitative of her friends and lovers.
In this new biography, Richard Bradford brings his sharp, incisive style to one of the great and most controversial writers of the twentieth century. He considers Highsmith's bestsellers in the context of her troubled personal life; her alcoholism, licentious sex life, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and abundant self-loathing.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 19, 2021
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January 30, 2021
"But who could like her?"
I don't know why I wanted to read this biography. Perhaps because Patricia Highsmith was lesbian, or perhaps because she was so repugnant that it gave me a guilty pleasure to read about her. To figuratively peek behind the curtain, staring in horror.
There was very little to like about her. She was virulently racist and antisemitic. She was a nymphomaniac who cheated on all of her partners. She was full of self loathing that she transferred onto others. She loved her cat more than humans and yet she often forgot to feed it and took delight in putting it in a sack and swinging it around so it could "enjoy" being "drunk".
She drank from morning to night. She was sadistic and masochistic. She admired snails so much that she often carried a hundred of them and a head of lettuce in her purse. At least once she took them out and put them on the table in the middle of a dinner party, announcing they were her "companions for the evening".
She thought we should feed miscarried and aborted fetuses to our pet cats and dogs.
Patricia Highsmith was far from a likable person. She was presumably mentally ill and her drinking was an attempt at self-medication. As loathsome as she was, she no doubt suffered.
And yet it's not easy to feel pity for this woman. Her one redeeming quality was her writing genius. In spite, or perhaps because, of her mental illness, Ms. Highsmith wrote several bestselling novels, her characters reflecting her tortured and troubled soul.
I found this biography vastly interesting though at times it was a bit of a mess. Especially in the beginning, it jumped around so much I didn't know where we were. The author tended to go off on tangents that were difficult to follow.
My other complaint about this book is that I could just see the author sneering at Patricia Highsmith, full of loathing. When I mentioned this to my partner, she said, "Yes, but who could like her?"
True. But one doesn't expect a biographer's personal feelings to come through so resolutely and I found it distasteful. He also gave his own analysis on her and several times I felt he missed the mark. He was too literal.
For instance, when her mother complained bitterly about her treatment of her, Patricia told her diary, "My mother is the type who fires a shotgun and then wonders why some of the birds are killed, others wounded, and the rest scared".
To which the author remarked, "There is no record of Mary having ever used a shotgun ....". I think it's apparent that she didn't intend to say her mother had ever used a shotgun. She was a writer and she often wrote in metaphor and analogies. It matters not that her mother never shot a gun. This says to me that her mother would do horrible things and then wonder why people were hurt or stayed away from her.
Whether or not this assessment applied to her mother or was simply a reflection of herself, I cannot say. But I found it odd that the author liked to disparagingly analyze Ms. Highsmith's words - and seemingly hit so far from the mark.
It felt at times like he wrote the book just so he could get out his feelings of contempt for her. He would both praise and disparage her writing. It comes across that he admires her but hates that he does.
I'm wavering between 3 and 4 stars and think I'll go with 4 because of how interesting the book is and because I learned a lot about Patricia Highsmith. It would have been nice to learn more about her childhood, to understand better why she was the way she was. However, there simply might not be much known or available about her early years.
The author might have perplexed me with how often his distaste came through, and made my eyes roll when his analyses seemed so far off, but I'm still glad I read the book.
I don't know why I wanted to read this biography. Perhaps because Patricia Highsmith was lesbian, or perhaps because she was so repugnant that it gave me a guilty pleasure to read about her. To figuratively peek behind the curtain, staring in horror.
There was very little to like about her. She was virulently racist and antisemitic. She was a nymphomaniac who cheated on all of her partners. She was full of self loathing that she transferred onto others. She loved her cat more than humans and yet she often forgot to feed it and took delight in putting it in a sack and swinging it around so it could "enjoy" being "drunk".
She drank from morning to night. She was sadistic and masochistic. She admired snails so much that she often carried a hundred of them and a head of lettuce in her purse. At least once she took them out and put them on the table in the middle of a dinner party, announcing they were her "companions for the evening".
She thought we should feed miscarried and aborted fetuses to our pet cats and dogs.
Patricia Highsmith was far from a likable person. She was presumably mentally ill and her drinking was an attempt at self-medication. As loathsome as she was, she no doubt suffered.
And yet it's not easy to feel pity for this woman. Her one redeeming quality was her writing genius. In spite, or perhaps because, of her mental illness, Ms. Highsmith wrote several bestselling novels, her characters reflecting her tortured and troubled soul.
I found this biography vastly interesting though at times it was a bit of a mess. Especially in the beginning, it jumped around so much I didn't know where we were. The author tended to go off on tangents that were difficult to follow.
My other complaint about this book is that I could just see the author sneering at Patricia Highsmith, full of loathing. When I mentioned this to my partner, she said, "Yes, but who could like her?"
True. But one doesn't expect a biographer's personal feelings to come through so resolutely and I found it distasteful. He also gave his own analysis on her and several times I felt he missed the mark. He was too literal.
For instance, when her mother complained bitterly about her treatment of her, Patricia told her diary, "My mother is the type who fires a shotgun and then wonders why some of the birds are killed, others wounded, and the rest scared".
To which the author remarked, "There is no record of Mary having ever used a shotgun ....". I think it's apparent that she didn't intend to say her mother had ever used a shotgun. She was a writer and she often wrote in metaphor and analogies. It matters not that her mother never shot a gun. This says to me that her mother would do horrible things and then wonder why people were hurt or stayed away from her.
Whether or not this assessment applied to her mother or was simply a reflection of herself, I cannot say. But I found it odd that the author liked to disparagingly analyze Ms. Highsmith's words - and seemingly hit so far from the mark.
It felt at times like he wrote the book just so he could get out his feelings of contempt for her. He would both praise and disparage her writing. It comes across that he admires her but hates that he does.
I'm wavering between 3 and 4 stars and think I'll go with 4 because of how interesting the book is and because I learned a lot about Patricia Highsmith. It would have been nice to learn more about her childhood, to understand better why she was the way she was. However, there simply might not be much known or available about her early years.
The author might have perplexed me with how often his distaste came through, and made my eyes roll when his analyses seemed so far off, but I'm still glad I read the book.
March 20, 2021
,“Devil’s Lust’s and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith” (2021) is a bold and definitive examination of the late eccentric lesbian literary icon. Research Professor Richard Bradford teaches at Ulster University, located in the U.K. and was among the first to discover that most of the personal information about Highsmith was obtained directly from her own interviews, papers, and detailed journals diaries/cahier’s. When this information was carefully checked, cross-referenced and verified for accuracy, he discovered an entire web of Highsmith’s own manipulative behaviors, deliberate deceit, and shocking untruths. Before her death, Highsmith sold her papers to the Bern Literary Archive in Switzerland.
Patricia Highsmith (1921-95) was born in Ft. Worth, Texas to care-free artistic parents that finalized their divorce when Highsmith was an infant. The root of her mental instability may have developed from a sense of being unwanted and unloved. Raised by her grandparents, she was later sent to a girl’s boarding school where she grandly compared her heritage to “Gone With The Wind.” It was unlikely that she was treated for the 1918 Flu Epidemic that claimed the lives of millions worldwide. Despite attempts to repair the mother-daughter relationship, Highsmith demonized her mother and step-father, thriving in family distress and conflict, avoiding peaceful interactions, and refused to overlook or forgive any slight, real or imagined.
Highsmith attended college at Barnard (1938-42) and after completing her education, she attained a job as an editorial assistant for FFF Publishing, a large established firm that mostly published Jewish newspapers and journals. The editor, B.Z. Goldberg gave her writing attention and advice which helped launch her first bestselling novel “Strangers On A Train” (1950)— the film rights were bought by Alfred Hitchcock. Highsmith could not resist making anti-Semitic comments and slurs against this employer, her hateful derogatory remarks against the Jews and other minorities continued unchecked throughout her life.
With the recommendation of Truman Capote, Highsmith briefly spent time at Yaddo, the Gothic Tudor artist/writer’s residence in Saratoga. N.Y. (1948). Initially the first drafts of her novel were rejected. Highsmith began an intimate relationship with the handsome charming British novelist Marc Brandel (1919-94). According to Bradford, Brandel was probably her ideal heterosexual match. Highsmith attended sessions with a psychoanalyst that probed her “deviant” homosexual tendencies: Highsmith’s patterns of loving and leaving her lesbian lovers were deeply rooted in her hatred of her mother, further group therapy was recommended. Privately, Highsmith didn’t take her analyst seriously, and mocked her behind her back. After Brandel was coldly discarded, he retaliated with his novel: “The Choice” (1952)—about a creepy cockroach exterminator and his grotesque unmistakably evil girlfriend Jill-- who was based on Highsmith.
“The Price of Salt” (1952) was “the first lesbian novel with a happy ending”. It was evident that Highsmith knew the power and influence of her writing on friends and lovers, and mined their lives for material in her novels that often contained “dark and terrifying” themes. Her most lasting and significant lesbian relationship was with a Jewish humanitarian social worker, Ellen Blumenthal Hill. Highly intelligent, Hill was seduced and romanced by extravagant meals and exciting European travel, she was forced to maintain a healthy distance for her own safety and well-being when her loyalty, love, and devotion to Highsmith nearly ended her life.
Novelist Marijane Meeker provided a detailed account of her relationship with Highsmith in her memoir: “Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950’s” (2003). By that time, Highsmith was likely an alcoholic. Bradford also noted a lack of creditability or believable diary/cahier accounts of these particular relationships. None of Highsmith's intimate relationships lasted long.
Highsmith moved to Europe in 1963, where she resided in spacious luxury homes for the rest of her life. Her European fans attended her readings and purchased her novels in record numbers, insuring her fame and status as an international celebrity author. In the U.S. her novels were reviewed favorably by some critics, but were viewed as less interesting and unappealing among mass readership. Highsmith won countless literary awards, produced 22 novels and numerous short stories. “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1955) is critically acclaimed masterpiece. Thomas Ripley is also cited as of the most fascinating biographical fictional characters of all time-- described as a charming, soulless, predator, few things separate the seductive con-man from the writer that created him. However, unlike Thomas Ripley, Highsmith never murdered anyone in real life, only on the page. Patricia Highsmith died alone at Carita Hospital in Locarno, Switzerland. ** With appreciation to Bloomsbury via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.
Patricia Highsmith (1921-95) was born in Ft. Worth, Texas to care-free artistic parents that finalized their divorce when Highsmith was an infant. The root of her mental instability may have developed from a sense of being unwanted and unloved. Raised by her grandparents, she was later sent to a girl’s boarding school where she grandly compared her heritage to “Gone With The Wind.” It was unlikely that she was treated for the 1918 Flu Epidemic that claimed the lives of millions worldwide. Despite attempts to repair the mother-daughter relationship, Highsmith demonized her mother and step-father, thriving in family distress and conflict, avoiding peaceful interactions, and refused to overlook or forgive any slight, real or imagined.
Highsmith attended college at Barnard (1938-42) and after completing her education, she attained a job as an editorial assistant for FFF Publishing, a large established firm that mostly published Jewish newspapers and journals. The editor, B.Z. Goldberg gave her writing attention and advice which helped launch her first bestselling novel “Strangers On A Train” (1950)— the film rights were bought by Alfred Hitchcock. Highsmith could not resist making anti-Semitic comments and slurs against this employer, her hateful derogatory remarks against the Jews and other minorities continued unchecked throughout her life.
With the recommendation of Truman Capote, Highsmith briefly spent time at Yaddo, the Gothic Tudor artist/writer’s residence in Saratoga. N.Y. (1948). Initially the first drafts of her novel were rejected. Highsmith began an intimate relationship with the handsome charming British novelist Marc Brandel (1919-94). According to Bradford, Brandel was probably her ideal heterosexual match. Highsmith attended sessions with a psychoanalyst that probed her “deviant” homosexual tendencies: Highsmith’s patterns of loving and leaving her lesbian lovers were deeply rooted in her hatred of her mother, further group therapy was recommended. Privately, Highsmith didn’t take her analyst seriously, and mocked her behind her back. After Brandel was coldly discarded, he retaliated with his novel: “The Choice” (1952)—about a creepy cockroach exterminator and his grotesque unmistakably evil girlfriend Jill-- who was based on Highsmith.
“The Price of Salt” (1952) was “the first lesbian novel with a happy ending”. It was evident that Highsmith knew the power and influence of her writing on friends and lovers, and mined their lives for material in her novels that often contained “dark and terrifying” themes. Her most lasting and significant lesbian relationship was with a Jewish humanitarian social worker, Ellen Blumenthal Hill. Highly intelligent, Hill was seduced and romanced by extravagant meals and exciting European travel, she was forced to maintain a healthy distance for her own safety and well-being when her loyalty, love, and devotion to Highsmith nearly ended her life.
Novelist Marijane Meeker provided a detailed account of her relationship with Highsmith in her memoir: “Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950’s” (2003). By that time, Highsmith was likely an alcoholic. Bradford also noted a lack of creditability or believable diary/cahier accounts of these particular relationships. None of Highsmith's intimate relationships lasted long.
Highsmith moved to Europe in 1963, where she resided in spacious luxury homes for the rest of her life. Her European fans attended her readings and purchased her novels in record numbers, insuring her fame and status as an international celebrity author. In the U.S. her novels were reviewed favorably by some critics, but were viewed as less interesting and unappealing among mass readership. Highsmith won countless literary awards, produced 22 novels and numerous short stories. “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1955) is critically acclaimed masterpiece. Thomas Ripley is also cited as of the most fascinating biographical fictional characters of all time-- described as a charming, soulless, predator, few things separate the seductive con-man from the writer that created him. However, unlike Thomas Ripley, Highsmith never murdered anyone in real life, only on the page. Patricia Highsmith died alone at Carita Hospital in Locarno, Switzerland. ** With appreciation to Bloomsbury via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.
December 20, 2020
My, what a character Highsmith was! Deceptive, manipulative, an alcoholic, someone who went from affair to affair conducted with both breathtaking cruelty (leaving one lover, who had overdosed, alone while expecting her to die) and also a kind of self-loathing masochism, whose opinions ranged from horrific racism and and anti-Semitism (she openly described herself as a 'Jew-hater') to writing a bold novel about a lesbian love affair in McCarthy-era USA.
At times, we can't help but warm to this wildly eccentric character (keeping snails in her huge handbag where they lived on a head of lettuce - and letting them loose on the table at a posh dinner party!); at others we have to revile her hateful statements about Jews, especially, but also Latinos and Blacks. A veritable conundrum of a personality, then - who also happened to write the fascinatingly subversive Ripley books.
Bradford's biography is ideal for anyone coming to Highsmith's life for the first time as it's brisk and pacy. I have to say, though, that I found it a bit one-note: it's built on the thesis that Highsmith channeled aspects of her own awkward, unbalanced personality into her books, filled as they are with fantasies of murder, switched identities, stalking and violence. This point alongside her serial affairs makes up the body of the book, with fairly detailed summaries of the novels themselves - if you haven't read them, then be aware that this is packed with spoilers.
Bradford occasionally quotes from Highsmith's journals and also uses material from Andrew Wilson's biography, Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith. It's notable that there's no need for references at the end so this isn't an academic biography or really dealing with any new material. Importantly, though, it pushes the reader to go back to Highsmith's novels again, never a bad thing.
There are a few places where the writing gets confused and ungrammatical ('Highsmith was so transfixed with Marijane that she postponed her trip to Europe, with whom she would be accompanied by her mother') but, to be fair, I was reading an ARC so hopefully these infelicities will be smoothed out.
Having read an earlier biography, I didn't find anything new here and found myself skimming somewhat but I'd expect anyone new to Highsmith's life to find this both entertaining and informative.
Thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley
At times, we can't help but warm to this wildly eccentric character (keeping snails in her huge handbag where they lived on a head of lettuce - and letting them loose on the table at a posh dinner party!); at others we have to revile her hateful statements about Jews, especially, but also Latinos and Blacks. A veritable conundrum of a personality, then - who also happened to write the fascinatingly subversive Ripley books.
Bradford's biography is ideal for anyone coming to Highsmith's life for the first time as it's brisk and pacy. I have to say, though, that I found it a bit one-note: it's built on the thesis that Highsmith channeled aspects of her own awkward, unbalanced personality into her books, filled as they are with fantasies of murder, switched identities, stalking and violence. This point alongside her serial affairs makes up the body of the book, with fairly detailed summaries of the novels themselves - if you haven't read them, then be aware that this is packed with spoilers.
Bradford occasionally quotes from Highsmith's journals and also uses material from Andrew Wilson's biography, Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith. It's notable that there's no need for references at the end so this isn't an academic biography or really dealing with any new material. Importantly, though, it pushes the reader to go back to Highsmith's novels again, never a bad thing.
There are a few places where the writing gets confused and ungrammatical ('Highsmith was so transfixed with Marijane that she postponed her trip to Europe, with whom she would be accompanied by her mother') but, to be fair, I was reading an ARC so hopefully these infelicities will be smoothed out.
Having read an earlier biography, I didn't find anything new here and found myself skimming somewhat but I'd expect anyone new to Highsmith's life to find this both entertaining and informative.
Thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley
December 6, 2020
I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to write a biography about such a vile person. Patricia Highsmith had few redeeming qualities and is not someone I would care to meet during the light of day much less at the dead of night. At one point she kept snails on lettuce leaves in her handbag. That is moving from the eccentric into the outright bizarre. Name a prejudice and she embraced it not to neglect mentioning she was an accomplished liar. A pathological mess? Definitely. Nonetheless, she did famously write The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train. This biography successfully takes a look a Highsmith’s work within the context of her life.
December 15, 2020
I was attraced to Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith having read and really enjoyed Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
I knew very little about Patricia Highsmith and was quite surprised to discover how unusual she was. Actually that's quite the understatement as she was self mythologising, dishonest, heartless, predatory, racist and virulently anti-semitic, possibly insane, and obsessed by snails. This all makes her a fascinating subject for a biography. What creates even more interest and intrigue is how her life formed the basis for her fiction. As Richard Bradford states, her success as a crime writer was based on her career as an emotional vandal.
Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith is a poor advert for Highsmith the person, and indeed for Highsmith the writer, however it is a jaw dropping glimpse behind the curtain of her bizarre and frightening world.
4/5
'My New Year's Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle - may they never give me peace'
PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (New Year's Eve, 1947)
Made famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith is lauded as one of the most influential and celebrated modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books.
The relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality – by parts self-destructive and malicious – and her fiction, has been largely avoided by biographers. She was openly homosexual and wrote the seminal lesbian love story, Carol. In modern times, she would be venerated as a radical exponent of the LGBT community. However, her status as an LGBT icon is undermined by the fact that she was excessively cruel and exploitative of her friends and lovers.
In this new biography, Richard Bradford brings his sharp, incisive style to one of the great and most controversial writers of the twentieth century. He considers Highsmith's bestsellers in the context of her troubled personal life; her alcoholism, licentious sex life, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and abundant self-loathing.
I knew very little about Patricia Highsmith and was quite surprised to discover how unusual she was. Actually that's quite the understatement as she was self mythologising, dishonest, heartless, predatory, racist and virulently anti-semitic, possibly insane, and obsessed by snails. This all makes her a fascinating subject for a biography. What creates even more interest and intrigue is how her life formed the basis for her fiction. As Richard Bradford states, her success as a crime writer was based on her career as an emotional vandal.
Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith is a poor advert for Highsmith the person, and indeed for Highsmith the writer, however it is a jaw dropping glimpse behind the curtain of her bizarre and frightening world.
4/5
'My New Year's Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle - may they never give me peace'
PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (New Year's Eve, 1947)
Made famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith is lauded as one of the most influential and celebrated modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books.
The relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality – by parts self-destructive and malicious – and her fiction, has been largely avoided by biographers. She was openly homosexual and wrote the seminal lesbian love story, Carol. In modern times, she would be venerated as a radical exponent of the LGBT community. However, her status as an LGBT icon is undermined by the fact that she was excessively cruel and exploitative of her friends and lovers.
In this new biography, Richard Bradford brings his sharp, incisive style to one of the great and most controversial writers of the twentieth century. He considers Highsmith's bestsellers in the context of her troubled personal life; her alcoholism, licentious sex life, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and abundant self-loathing.
July 4, 2023
The Warts* and Almost Nothing But the Warts Bio
Review of the Dreamscape Media LLC audiobook edition (May 18, 2021) narrated by Daniel Henning & released shortly after the Bloomsbury Caravel hardcover & eBook (January 19 & 21, 2021).
I chanced upon the beginnings of a potential Highsmith-binge when I recently snapped up The Tremor of Forgery (1969) through a Kindle Deal-of-the-Day. I had previously only read Strangers on a Train (1950), The Price of Salt (aka Carol) (1952) and the 5 Ripley novels (1955 - 1991). That leaves about 15 novels and a half dozen or more short story collections yet to discover. I also looked for the biographies and saw that Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires... was the most recent, along with a graphic novel Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith (2022) which is an adaptation of the real-life backstory to her writing of the lesbian romance portrayed in The Price of Salt.
With these recent books, the recent film Deep Water (2022), the recent Loving Highsmith (2022) documentary and an upcoming Ripley (late 2023?) TV-series starring Andrew Scott as the murderous Thomas Ripley, it does look like a further Highsmith revival is ongoing/coming, so why not get ahead of it?
But caveat emptor about the Bradford biography. It paints just about as ugly a portrait of Highsmith as is possible to do and further spoils the plots of almost all of her novels as it tries to draw parallels between her real-life actions of discarding or ignoring past or current lovers with the murderous antics of her sociopathic protagonists. Bradford also doubts the veracity of much of Highsmith's own diaries and notebooks and constantly tries to make a case for them being fictional fantasies. Admittedly there was plenty to dislike about the real-life Highsmith with her self-destructive alcoholism, mistreatment of lovers and wide-spread racism. Bradford takes this to another level of hate for his own subject though.
Portrait of Patricia Highsmith, circa 1942 by photographer Rolf Tietgens. Image sourced from The Many Faces of Patricia Highsmith, New York Times Style Magazine, April 19, 2021.
So this is a mostly awful bits and little else biography, and the earlier biographies are likely to be preferred (although I haven't read them yet). A further (or alternative) recommended reading list is therefore Joan Schenkar's The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (2009) and Andrew Wilson's Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith (2003). Also intriguing is Marijane Meaker's memoir Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950's (2003) and her own early lesbian pulp fiction of Spring Fire (1952) published under the Vin Packer pseudonym. A fictionally murderous Patricia Highsmith is imagined in Jill Dawson's novel The Crime Writer (2016).
The narration in the audiobook edition by Daniel Henning felt in keeping with the tone of the material.
Footnote
* When I was thinking about a lede for this review I remembered the phrase "warts and all" and then looking it up I saw that it is attributed to Oliver Cromwell, who supposedly instructed his portrait painter not to beautify his appearance, but to show even the uglier aspects.
Other Reviews
Gotcha, Pat! by Terry Castle, London Review of Books, March 4, 2021.
When Friends Mean Less than Plots by Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian, January 22, 2021.
A Look Into the Dark Inner World of Patricia Highsmith by Charles Green, Lambda Literary, January 22, 2021.
The Dangerous World of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Martin, Financial Times, January 28, 2021.
Trivia and Links
A Patricia Highsmith biographical film documentary was released in 2022 called “Loving Highsmith” directed by Eva Vitija, for which you can see the trailer here.
Review of the Dreamscape Media LLC audiobook edition (May 18, 2021) narrated by Daniel Henning & released shortly after the Bloomsbury Caravel hardcover & eBook (January 19 & 21, 2021).
I chanced upon the beginnings of a potential Highsmith-binge when I recently snapped up The Tremor of Forgery (1969) through a Kindle Deal-of-the-Day. I had previously only read Strangers on a Train (1950), The Price of Salt (aka Carol) (1952) and the 5 Ripley novels (1955 - 1991). That leaves about 15 novels and a half dozen or more short story collections yet to discover. I also looked for the biographies and saw that Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires... was the most recent, along with a graphic novel Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith (2022) which is an adaptation of the real-life backstory to her writing of the lesbian romance portrayed in The Price of Salt.
With these recent books, the recent film Deep Water (2022), the recent Loving Highsmith (2022) documentary and an upcoming Ripley (late 2023?) TV-series starring Andrew Scott as the murderous Thomas Ripley, it does look like a further Highsmith revival is ongoing/coming, so why not get ahead of it?
But caveat emptor about the Bradford biography. It paints just about as ugly a portrait of Highsmith as is possible to do and further spoils the plots of almost all of her novels as it tries to draw parallels between her real-life actions of discarding or ignoring past or current lovers with the murderous antics of her sociopathic protagonists. Bradford also doubts the veracity of much of Highsmith's own diaries and notebooks and constantly tries to make a case for them being fictional fantasies. Admittedly there was plenty to dislike about the real-life Highsmith with her self-destructive alcoholism, mistreatment of lovers and wide-spread racism. Bradford takes this to another level of hate for his own subject though.
Portrait of Patricia Highsmith, circa 1942 by photographer Rolf Tietgens. Image sourced from The Many Faces of Patricia Highsmith, New York Times Style Magazine, April 19, 2021.
So this is a mostly awful bits and little else biography, and the earlier biographies are likely to be preferred (although I haven't read them yet). A further (or alternative) recommended reading list is therefore Joan Schenkar's The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (2009) and Andrew Wilson's Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith (2003). Also intriguing is Marijane Meaker's memoir Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950's (2003) and her own early lesbian pulp fiction of Spring Fire (1952) published under the Vin Packer pseudonym. A fictionally murderous Patricia Highsmith is imagined in Jill Dawson's novel The Crime Writer (2016).
The narration in the audiobook edition by Daniel Henning felt in keeping with the tone of the material.
Footnote
* When I was thinking about a lede for this review I remembered the phrase "warts and all" and then looking it up I saw that it is attributed to Oliver Cromwell, who supposedly instructed his portrait painter not to beautify his appearance, but to show even the uglier aspects.
Other Reviews
Gotcha, Pat! by Terry Castle, London Review of Books, March 4, 2021.
When Friends Mean Less than Plots by Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian, January 22, 2021.
A Look Into the Dark Inner World of Patricia Highsmith by Charles Green, Lambda Literary, January 22, 2021.
The Dangerous World of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Martin, Financial Times, January 28, 2021.
Trivia and Links
A Patricia Highsmith biographical film documentary was released in 2022 called “Loving Highsmith” directed by Eva Vitija, for which you can see the trailer here.
April 29, 2022
I have to say, this book is largely shit. I thought Andrew Wilson's biography of Highsmith was subpar, compared to Schenkar's absolutely stunning The Talented Miss Highsmith, but Wilson is leagues above Bradford.
Why does this book exist? I have no idea. Bradford's chief contribution seems to be doubting that people mentioned in Highsmith's cahiers exist, and giving his shoddy hot takes on Highsmith's motivations and behaviour. He spends altogether too much time, for such a short book, summarizing Highsmith's novels, while attempting to do that tedious auto fictive analysis thing literary critics do. You know, where they play Freud-detective and draw conclusions from about the author from the fiction? Even the photos seem kind of meh - a still from the movie Carol, a random picture of students Barnard College, none of whom are Highsmith, nor anyone Highsmith knew. Surely more useful images exist...?
I had marked passages where Bradford particularly irritated me. But honestly, I can't be bothered to list them here.
For anyone interested, Schenkar's biography is tops. If you're a Highsmith afficionado, and want to know everything you can about her life, read Wilson's on top of Schenkar's. Of course, you'll want to track down Meaker's memoir of her time with Highsmith, too. Plus the diaries that should be released in the near future. Only after exhausting all else should you ever consider taking this book out from the library.
Edit: For the sadists among us, Terry Castle's takedown of Bradford (here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n...) is absolutely delicious.
Why does this book exist? I have no idea. Bradford's chief contribution seems to be doubting that people mentioned in Highsmith's cahiers exist, and giving his shoddy hot takes on Highsmith's motivations and behaviour. He spends altogether too much time, for such a short book, summarizing Highsmith's novels, while attempting to do that tedious auto fictive analysis thing literary critics do. You know, where they play Freud-detective and draw conclusions from about the author from the fiction? Even the photos seem kind of meh - a still from the movie Carol, a random picture of students Barnard College, none of whom are Highsmith, nor anyone Highsmith knew. Surely more useful images exist...?
I had marked passages where Bradford particularly irritated me. But honestly, I can't be bothered to list them here.
For anyone interested, Schenkar's biography is tops. If you're a Highsmith afficionado, and want to know everything you can about her life, read Wilson's on top of Schenkar's. Of course, you'll want to track down Meaker's memoir of her time with Highsmith, too. Plus the diaries that should be released in the near future. Only after exhausting all else should you ever consider taking this book out from the library.
Edit: For the sadists among us, Terry Castle's takedown of Bradford (here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n...) is absolutely delicious.
June 11, 2022
A pioneer of gay and lesbian literature, a woman who enjoyed provoking others with her statements and lifestyle, a lover who couldn't hold a steady relationship with either men or women, the author whom Graham Greene named "poet of the apprehension", all of the above and so much more, Patricia Highsmith is one of the most controversial figures in the American literary canon of the twentieth century and many researchers have attempted to provide a complete life chronicle, the emphasis being on the distinct memoir-in-fiction narrative and the correlation between her overall life stance and her body of work. Highsmith has published more than 20 novels, numerous collections of short stories and her most distinguished works have been adapted into the cinema screen by auteurs of the magnitude of Alfred Hitchcock (Strangers on a Train). Her trademarks that left a stark imprint on the minds and hearts of the global readership are her fixation with the theme of identity, the complete lack of morality that defines her most notable characters, and the cynical worldview that some describe as borderline misanthropic. Apart from Strangers on a Train that gained traction through the 1951 titular film by the English master of suspense, Highsmith is widely known for the "Ripliad" a series of five novels featuring Tom Ripley as the protagonist, an unscrupulous individual who won't hesitate to commit even the most atrocious acts in order to get what he wants. The first installment, The Talented Mr. Ripley has also become a movie twice: the first adaptation is René Clément's Purple Noon (1960) starring Alain Delon as Ripley, and the second is the 1999 The Talented Mr. Ripley, directed by Anthony Minghella with Matt Damon and Jude Law as Tom and Dickie respectively.
To read my full review, visit https://tapthelinemag.com/post/devils...
To read my full review, visit https://tapthelinemag.com/post/devils...
November 29, 2020
Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith by Richard Bradford is a fascinating yet frustrating read. The cause of the frustration is more because of the subject than the biographer.
Bradford does a tremendous amount of research and, probably most important, works back and forth between various sources trying to piece together some kind of story that will be fairly complete and accurate. Part of the problem is that Highsmith, for what seems to be a mixture of intention and simply a strange view of the world, made her diaries and letters as much of a puzzle as some of her stories but without the resolution you expect from a story.
To be a fan of Highsmith's is immediately problematic. Her fiction, for the most part, is worthy of praise. But we have a hard time completely separating being a fan of a writer's work from being a fan of the writer. If one makes that distinction then many people will be a fan of her writing only, which would likely have been fine with her.
I don't think Bradford overstepped when he made comparisons between Highsmith and her characters, especially Ripley. Unlike the Kirkus reviewer (and the reviewer on the site here who cribbed that review) I don't think calling her a predator is too far-fetched. One doesn't have to even break the law to be a predator. She did, by her own admission, target and plan relationships that would be disruptive to her target's life and other relationships then, also with planning, inflict mental and emotional pain on them. The targeting is, in other words, treating them as prey, which by definition makes her predatory.
Reading this was different from most biographies I've read. Namely, in most, the biographer makes decisions on what seems most likely and presents that, with a few places where insurmountable conflicts make such a determination too hard and the biographer shares that dilemma. This is almost dilemma after dilemma. Contradictions between documents, interviews with her and acquaintances, as well as what can be independently verified. There are times when it even appears she added to older entries specifically to make her story that much more convoluted. Bradford shares these difficulties with us, which makes this very much a collaborative book. As readers, we are free to interpret the conflicting evidence in a different manner than he does.
I recommend this to readers who like Highsmith's books as well as readers who enjoy problematic public figures. To say it is hard to like who she was is an understatement, but I think we have enough information to feel something, if not positive, at least empathetic about her. I always have a hard time with those hypothetical "who would you invite to a dinner" questions, but I no longer have a problem with at least one name for the "who would you NOT invite to a dinner" question.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Bradford does a tremendous amount of research and, probably most important, works back and forth between various sources trying to piece together some kind of story that will be fairly complete and accurate. Part of the problem is that Highsmith, for what seems to be a mixture of intention and simply a strange view of the world, made her diaries and letters as much of a puzzle as some of her stories but without the resolution you expect from a story.
To be a fan of Highsmith's is immediately problematic. Her fiction, for the most part, is worthy of praise. But we have a hard time completely separating being a fan of a writer's work from being a fan of the writer. If one makes that distinction then many people will be a fan of her writing only, which would likely have been fine with her.
I don't think Bradford overstepped when he made comparisons between Highsmith and her characters, especially Ripley. Unlike the Kirkus reviewer (and the reviewer on the site here who cribbed that review) I don't think calling her a predator is too far-fetched. One doesn't have to even break the law to be a predator. She did, by her own admission, target and plan relationships that would be disruptive to her target's life and other relationships then, also with planning, inflict mental and emotional pain on them. The targeting is, in other words, treating them as prey, which by definition makes her predatory.
Reading this was different from most biographies I've read. Namely, in most, the biographer makes decisions on what seems most likely and presents that, with a few places where insurmountable conflicts make such a determination too hard and the biographer shares that dilemma. This is almost dilemma after dilemma. Contradictions between documents, interviews with her and acquaintances, as well as what can be independently verified. There are times when it even appears she added to older entries specifically to make her story that much more convoluted. Bradford shares these difficulties with us, which makes this very much a collaborative book. As readers, we are free to interpret the conflicting evidence in a different manner than he does.
I recommend this to readers who like Highsmith's books as well as readers who enjoy problematic public figures. To say it is hard to like who she was is an understatement, but I think we have enough information to feel something, if not positive, at least empathetic about her. I always have a hard time with those hypothetical "who would you invite to a dinner" questions, but I no longer have a problem with at least one name for the "who would you NOT invite to a dinner" question.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
March 9, 2021
This could have been called The Talented Ms. Ripley.
I was shocked & laughing at this book before I escaped the bookstore. The first two pages of its introduction warn us that this will be no hagiography, unless we give “hag” a more coruscating definition, something kindred to sorceress or disastrous Donna Juanita. A snippet:
“… her record as a lover might be treated as a triumph for lesbianism, gay sexuality, and even women’s rights in general. Compared to Highsmith, the likes of Casanova, Errol Flynn and Lord Byron might be considered lethargic – even demure. She seemed to enjoy affairs with married women in particular, but breaking up lesbian couples came a close second.”
Then there’s her spectacular misanthropy, a condition she augmented throughout her life. In the words of one of her friends: “She was an equal opportunity offender… You name the group, she hated them.” Bradford elaborates. “Her hate list was impressive in its diversity: Latinos, black people, Koreans, Indians (south Asian), ‘Red Indians’, the Portuguese, Catholics, evangelicals and fundamentalists, and Mexicans, among others.” Especially Jews, even though two of the women she loved most were Jewish.
I’m merely scratching the surface. Bradford plows right through the inferno of entanglements, her profound alcoholism and heinous betrayals, and illuminates her art of fiction, which in Highsmith’s case seemed compulsive. Her many diaries (or cahiers as she called them) reveal her inventing herself in bizarre modalities, committing her lovers to savage scenarios almost from the beginning. Bradford has done his research. This isn’t a hatchet job but it’s certainly bloody.
I confess that I found it all exhilarating. Somehow Bradford kept me on Pat’s side all the way through, not forgiving, not understanding all, just impressed by her capacity for surviving herself. “My writing, the themes I write on, do not permit me to express love.” Another quote from her cahiers, amplified by Bradford. “She meant that in order to create the loveless, inherently evil figures who were now her speciality, she just exists in a collateral state of bitterness, anger and deception in the real world.” Even as he relates the carnage of her love affairs, I couldn’t help being impressed by what must have been colossal charisma. She went straight for whomever she wanted, then for the next, discarding and picking up women more beautiful, more intelligent, much wealthier than she was, most of whom endured one humiliation or débâcle after another then returned to suffer more whenever she beckoned.
So reader beware, Tom Ripley has nothing on his maleficent creator, he’s only her shadow.
I was shocked & laughing at this book before I escaped the bookstore. The first two pages of its introduction warn us that this will be no hagiography, unless we give “hag” a more coruscating definition, something kindred to sorceress or disastrous Donna Juanita. A snippet:
“… her record as a lover might be treated as a triumph for lesbianism, gay sexuality, and even women’s rights in general. Compared to Highsmith, the likes of Casanova, Errol Flynn and Lord Byron might be considered lethargic – even demure. She seemed to enjoy affairs with married women in particular, but breaking up lesbian couples came a close second.”
Then there’s her spectacular misanthropy, a condition she augmented throughout her life. In the words of one of her friends: “She was an equal opportunity offender… You name the group, she hated them.” Bradford elaborates. “Her hate list was impressive in its diversity: Latinos, black people, Koreans, Indians (south Asian), ‘Red Indians’, the Portuguese, Catholics, evangelicals and fundamentalists, and Mexicans, among others.” Especially Jews, even though two of the women she loved most were Jewish.
I’m merely scratching the surface. Bradford plows right through the inferno of entanglements, her profound alcoholism and heinous betrayals, and illuminates her art of fiction, which in Highsmith’s case seemed compulsive. Her many diaries (or cahiers as she called them) reveal her inventing herself in bizarre modalities, committing her lovers to savage scenarios almost from the beginning. Bradford has done his research. This isn’t a hatchet job but it’s certainly bloody.
I confess that I found it all exhilarating. Somehow Bradford kept me on Pat’s side all the way through, not forgiving, not understanding all, just impressed by her capacity for surviving herself. “My writing, the themes I write on, do not permit me to express love.” Another quote from her cahiers, amplified by Bradford. “She meant that in order to create the loveless, inherently evil figures who were now her speciality, she just exists in a collateral state of bitterness, anger and deception in the real world.” Even as he relates the carnage of her love affairs, I couldn’t help being impressed by what must have been colossal charisma. She went straight for whomever she wanted, then for the next, discarding and picking up women more beautiful, more intelligent, much wealthier than she was, most of whom endured one humiliation or débâcle after another then returned to suffer more whenever she beckoned.
So reader beware, Tom Ripley has nothing on his maleficent creator, he’s only her shadow.
January 15, 2022
2.5* rounded up
January 17, 2021
A troubled and unlikable subject Highsmith was a racist anti-Semite according to her diaries. A promiscuous lesbian, she had.troubled relationships hurt by her alcoholism. No question that.some of.her writing is.daring and dark. The author points out that many of her diary entries could not be substantiated by other sources including many of her hookups and places visited. Without sources, the biography seems speculative at best.
Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley
Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley
August 4, 2021
I did not read this whole book since it was so lousy. This author actually used the word "nymphomania," yes, in the year 2021. He has a theory that some (much?) of what Highsmith wrote in her personal journals was fantasy. If you think that's an intriguing idea, go ahead and waste your time on this tedious "biography." The author couldn't even supply photographs of interest. There's a still from Strangers on a Train, a still from The Talented Mr. Ripley, a photo of a movie poster, a photo of a book jacket, a still from Carol, a photo of a house, a friend, and finally some photos of Highsmith, none earlier than 1970. If you think I'm a fan girl who is reacting to the negativity in this book, you're wrong. You can't read a biography about or memoir concerning Highsmith without being exposed to her darker side, but Bradford exploits her dark side to make a buck, and that I don't respect.
March 17, 2021
Reading a biography when the author clearly does not like his subject is always unsettling. I found it especially so with this book about Patricia Highsmith. What a rollercoaster of a read this was in terms of reading about an unhappy, unlikable woman, and yet being frustrated by Bradford's unconcealed biases; while being torn between respecting the subject's traumas and hurts, and understanding the biographer's distaste for Highsmith's misanthropic rants; most noticeably her antisemitism and racism. This was a dark read, indeed.
Addendum: It's the morning after having written the above review and I cannot stop thinking of this book, its subject. A book that makes the reader uncomfortable, that has the reader continuing to think long after closing the last page, to me that is important to point out. I am reminded of the kind of reader I want to become.
3.5
Addendum: It's the morning after having written the above review and I cannot stop thinking of this book, its subject. A book that makes the reader uncomfortable, that has the reader continuing to think long after closing the last page, to me that is important to point out. I am reminded of the kind of reader I want to become.
3.5
February 23, 2025
The author got a hold of Patricia Highsmith's diaries and well, she certainly was way darker and much more of a misanthrope than we ever knew from previous biographies. This is a very gossipy book, so very candy-like in that respect, and very explicit about Highsmith's weirdness and her sexual obsessions and plentiful liaisons.
One of the stories that stood out for me was that Highsmith, during an early love affair, went on a European tour with a new girlfriend, then later, after the breakup, recreated that exact trip with another lover, down to the hotels, the trains the number of days in each place, without telling the new lover.
The author makes a case, backed up with evidence, that Highsmith lied in her diaries, and sometimes wrote what she would have liked to happen in her life instead of what really happened. This included making up a long love affair in college with a girl who it seems didn't exist. So part of the challenge for the biographer was to go around to people who knew her and try to sort out what was true in the diaries from what she made up.
Having read most of her books, it's funny that I didn't realize before that she really writes the same story over and over and over--the story of one person obsessed with another, which was also her life story.
One of the stories that stood out for me was that Highsmith, during an early love affair, went on a European tour with a new girlfriend, then later, after the breakup, recreated that exact trip with another lover, down to the hotels, the trains the number of days in each place, without telling the new lover.
The author makes a case, backed up with evidence, that Highsmith lied in her diaries, and sometimes wrote what she would have liked to happen in her life instead of what really happened. This included making up a long love affair in college with a girl who it seems didn't exist. So part of the challenge for the biographer was to go around to people who knew her and try to sort out what was true in the diaries from what she made up.
Having read most of her books, it's funny that I didn't realize before that she really writes the same story over and over and over--the story of one person obsessed with another, which was also her life story.
Read
September 7, 2021I found this a very difficult read, as the author couldn't disguise his disgust at the subject. This I found strange, as most people who choose to read about Patricia Highsmith, will likely find the blatant homophobia within its pages very disturbing. I wonder what the reason for publishing such a damning biography was? I found the book quite triggering in parts, and hope that this is a dying breed of male authors who are hired to make a point about a gay, independent, strong, and complex woman, who I felt was very absent from this book. It is a study of a man's hatred of women, and a study of how women who break stereotypes and rules must be crushed, even after their death. I would not recommend. I am really shocked that something so blatantly vile against lesbians was allowed to be published in 2021. Very strange.
Read
July 20, 2021DNF - wasn't what I was expecting and not in the mood to read about someone who was a bigot and a holocaust denier, even if I did enjoy The Talented Mr. Ripley.
August 6, 2022
It was o.k., but I prefer Andrew Wilson's biography.
Still need to finish reading the one by Joan Schenkar.
Still need to finish reading the one by Joan Schenkar.
January 12, 2021
Richard Bradford seems to choose to write biographies of literary figures he doesn't particularly like: last year Ernest Hemingway, and now Patricia Highsmith. Perhaps this leads to a more honest approach than if he were truly a fan?
This book is at its best when Bradford looks at Highsmith's literary output and its possible inspiration. It's at its worst when Highsmith is caught in yet another failed sexual relationship.
Patricia Highsmith's own mother called her a perennial liar, a sadist and a sexual pervert. As a life long fan I will always remember Patricia for her extraordinary body of work, including Strangers On A Train, The Price Of Salt and The Talented Mr Ripley.
This book is at its best when Bradford looks at Highsmith's literary output and its possible inspiration. It's at its worst when Highsmith is caught in yet another failed sexual relationship.
Patricia Highsmith's own mother called her a perennial liar, a sadist and a sexual pervert. As a life long fan I will always remember Patricia for her extraordinary body of work, including Strangers On A Train, The Price Of Salt and The Talented Mr Ripley.
January 8, 2022
Meh. Not well written. Lot’s of unsubstantiated speculation about Highsmith . Not that his subject was likable, but the author’s disdain of her overshadowed everything. It’s a few hours I’m never getting back.
March 23, 2021
Patricia Highsmith’s novels have lead her to be an icon of thrillers, taking a genre and turning it on its head and turning into a style that is all her own by making an anti-hero. Many of her stories have a dark thread and a diabolical sense that totally invest the reader into her work.
Bradford writes and interesting perspective into the life of Patricia Highsmith to show that she was an individual that did not settle into the norms of respectability. She broke rules, lived by her own set of boundaries and lead a very colourful life. Bradford attempts to write a bit of a character assignation on her and tends to repeat his convictions repeatedly. Although it is good that that the biographer is not in awe of his subject matter, one wonders if tipping the tale in the total opposite direction to a point where he seems to loathe her.
The book is very interesting and chronicles her life but it is seeded through with the author’s disdain for her lifestyle and often gives his own opinion by using his own moral compass. This is a bit disconcerting considering that the repeated critique of her work and life. One does wonder if you dislike someone so much, the reasons one would write a biography to display this to the reading public and what one is hoping to gain by doing this.
Bradford does do a good job in unearthing her life but one wonders how much research he did on his own that wasn’t already done by previous other biographers. Did he interview the people in her life personally or did he read interviews of past and put his own spin and feelings into it.
I do agree that she lived a very individual lifestyle and I do feel a good biographer takes a step back and details the person’s life and leaves their personal beliefs and judgement to themselves as this is up to the reader to connect the dots. As a chronicle and interesting read this really garners five stars but due to the personal character slander study and judgment used to prove he is a better person gives this a one star. It is a shame as this biography is worthwhile on one hand but a perfect shame on the other. For this, I am giving this three stars.
Bradford writes and interesting perspective into the life of Patricia Highsmith to show that she was an individual that did not settle into the norms of respectability. She broke rules, lived by her own set of boundaries and lead a very colourful life. Bradford attempts to write a bit of a character assignation on her and tends to repeat his convictions repeatedly. Although it is good that that the biographer is not in awe of his subject matter, one wonders if tipping the tale in the total opposite direction to a point where he seems to loathe her.
The book is very interesting and chronicles her life but it is seeded through with the author’s disdain for her lifestyle and often gives his own opinion by using his own moral compass. This is a bit disconcerting considering that the repeated critique of her work and life. One does wonder if you dislike someone so much, the reasons one would write a biography to display this to the reading public and what one is hoping to gain by doing this.
Bradford does do a good job in unearthing her life but one wonders how much research he did on his own that wasn’t already done by previous other biographers. Did he interview the people in her life personally or did he read interviews of past and put his own spin and feelings into it.
I do agree that she lived a very individual lifestyle and I do feel a good biographer takes a step back and details the person’s life and leaves their personal beliefs and judgement to themselves as this is up to the reader to connect the dots. As a chronicle and interesting read this really garners five stars but due to the personal character slander study and judgment used to prove he is a better person gives this a one star. It is a shame as this biography is worthwhile on one hand but a perfect shame on the other. For this, I am giving this three stars.
February 16, 2021
Too gossipy and too reliant on Highsmith’s diaries with too few other sources, e.g., what did Alfred Hitchcock have to say about her?!
May 15, 2021
Didn’t finish. Mostly rerun from other bios.
December 11, 2022
What led me to this book was the recent eighty minute documentary film 'Loving Highsmith', which I thought was a positive representation of the author. Though as many might know it takes two or three viewings of a documentary film to know how good it is. I have seen 'Loving Highsmith' only once, so far. I borrowed this book from my local library because I thought there was more to discover than the film let on, material for which there was not suitable footage, and I was right. The film covered the women in her life and how they related to her, in this book Highsmith comes across as a stranger person altogether than the film revealed her to be.
We are now all familiar with the idea of 'the unreliable narrator', where the book we read is the literary equivalent of quicksand in places and we will only know where we are in the book well after the narrative in the book rediscovers terra firma and unreliable episodes in it have been explained/explored to account for what was left unsaid at the time. With the invention of her 'Ripley' character Patricia Highsmith was surely the forerunner of many modern unreliable/evasive narrators in popular fiction.
This is a book to read slowly, where taking a break between chapters and episodes in the author's life is essential. The break becomes a palate cleanser for the next destabilising episode in the author's life. As a gay man I could identify with serial relationships of between three years and eighteen months and who knows what sort lesbian bed hopping in between relationships and concurrent to the more committed relationships. In my youth I did not (quite) do what the author did myself. I held to one enduring relation that lasted half my life. But I had plenty of friends who did bedhop etc. Three years is typically how long a strong relationship built just on sex will last, relationships that last longer are less built on sex, shared literary interests, they could also be built on travel, companionship, need in the event of ill health, whatever both partners trust each other for when sex no longer seems exciting.
The word 'bipolar' does not appear to describe Highsmith's behaviour until a bit shy of three quarters of the way through the book (page 175 of 244) but by this time the more the Richard Bradford talked up the mood cycles of Highsmith, the people she knew at the time, and how both correlate to plots of the books as she wrote them it is all fairly obvious. Nowadays with being gay or lesbian (or any the rest of gay alphabet) one of the points that is to the fore is about how gay men and lesbians etc should look after their mental health, not least to withstand the hatred they will face that thinks it is right and that homosexuality and lesbianism, and all sex outside of marriage, is wrong.
Given how primitive and punitive the understanding of mental health and non-conformist sexual relations were in Highsmith's youth, and even in her maturity, then to recycle her unease and lack of balance though her books was both safer and bolder, safe from destructive labelling by some self-appointed psychiatrist who would have got her sectioned and banned her from writing, and bolder because she was mapping a sense of self that she intuited surely existed in others as much as herself but there was no public affirmation of it.
From the film 'Loving Highsmith' it seemed that the best insulation from the threat of asylum for those who 'did not fit in' was some sort of sham heterosexual marriage. For the authentic lesbian that Highsmith the choice was a choice of institution, marriage or the insane asylum/drying out clinic, or all three by turns. As it was her way of resisting those closed choices was professional writing. Her being a writer was a release from the institutional agenda that the world would have imposed on her when ever it could. But to depend for emotional release on an activity that pays your way through the world is to rather put all your eggs in the one basket. And when those different eggs/different agendas did not always sit comfortably alongside each other then to say discomfort is creative is not necessarily a comfort.
Whilst she wrote to the end of her life it seems that her creativity waned from her mid sixties onward, in line with the decline in her physical health. From the mid 1980s she became something of a recluse. Any appetite for new lovers in her life simply did not translate into the 1980s/1990s reality.
It still surprises me that she had a twenty five year career as a published writer, longer if we include new writings published after her death. She was surprisingly well known and popular given the murky subject matter of much of her writing. Her writing took on many changes in tone and content over that time. With the centenary of her birth passing a little short of two years ago her future reputation seems to be assured.
We are now all familiar with the idea of 'the unreliable narrator', where the book we read is the literary equivalent of quicksand in places and we will only know where we are in the book well after the narrative in the book rediscovers terra firma and unreliable episodes in it have been explained/explored to account for what was left unsaid at the time. With the invention of her 'Ripley' character Patricia Highsmith was surely the forerunner of many modern unreliable/evasive narrators in popular fiction.
This is a book to read slowly, where taking a break between chapters and episodes in the author's life is essential. The break becomes a palate cleanser for the next destabilising episode in the author's life. As a gay man I could identify with serial relationships of between three years and eighteen months and who knows what sort lesbian bed hopping in between relationships and concurrent to the more committed relationships. In my youth I did not (quite) do what the author did myself. I held to one enduring relation that lasted half my life. But I had plenty of friends who did bedhop etc. Three years is typically how long a strong relationship built just on sex will last, relationships that last longer are less built on sex, shared literary interests, they could also be built on travel, companionship, need in the event of ill health, whatever both partners trust each other for when sex no longer seems exciting.
The word 'bipolar' does not appear to describe Highsmith's behaviour until a bit shy of three quarters of the way through the book (page 175 of 244) but by this time the more the Richard Bradford talked up the mood cycles of Highsmith, the people she knew at the time, and how both correlate to plots of the books as she wrote them it is all fairly obvious. Nowadays with being gay or lesbian (or any the rest of gay alphabet) one of the points that is to the fore is about how gay men and lesbians etc should look after their mental health, not least to withstand the hatred they will face that thinks it is right and that homosexuality and lesbianism, and all sex outside of marriage, is wrong.
Given how primitive and punitive the understanding of mental health and non-conformist sexual relations were in Highsmith's youth, and even in her maturity, then to recycle her unease and lack of balance though her books was both safer and bolder, safe from destructive labelling by some self-appointed psychiatrist who would have got her sectioned and banned her from writing, and bolder because she was mapping a sense of self that she intuited surely existed in others as much as herself but there was no public affirmation of it.
From the film 'Loving Highsmith' it seemed that the best insulation from the threat of asylum for those who 'did not fit in' was some sort of sham heterosexual marriage. For the authentic lesbian that Highsmith the choice was a choice of institution, marriage or the insane asylum/drying out clinic, or all three by turns. As it was her way of resisting those closed choices was professional writing. Her being a writer was a release from the institutional agenda that the world would have imposed on her when ever it could. But to depend for emotional release on an activity that pays your way through the world is to rather put all your eggs in the one basket. And when those different eggs/different agendas did not always sit comfortably alongside each other then to say discomfort is creative is not necessarily a comfort.
Whilst she wrote to the end of her life it seems that her creativity waned from her mid sixties onward, in line with the decline in her physical health. From the mid 1980s she became something of a recluse. Any appetite for new lovers in her life simply did not translate into the 1980s/1990s reality.
It still surprises me that she had a twenty five year career as a published writer, longer if we include new writings published after her death. She was surprisingly well known and popular given the murky subject matter of much of her writing. Her writing took on many changes in tone and content over that time. With the centenary of her birth passing a little short of two years ago her future reputation seems to be assured.
May 2, 2024
One of the common debates in the arts is the extent to which we can separate the artists' creations from their lives, and particularly unpleasant, unsavoury and/or criminal aspects of their behaviour. Can we appreciate Dali's art despite his politics? Or Rimbaud's poetry even though he later became a gun-runner? Or the music of Phil Spector, a convicted murderer? On the one hand it seems too flippant to say an artist's life is irrelevant to our appreciation of the artist, particularly as we all use our lives as inspiration. But on the other hand, literature, visual art, music, etc can all be appreciated without knowing a thing about the creator of the art, and in reality all of us are fallible and have taken part in behaviour that in retrospect we are ashamed of. (Those of us who have lived most of our lives before the existence of social media are fortunate that some of our worst behaviours occurred before anyone could put them on Facebook or Twitter!)
A case in point is the American writer Patricia Highsmith, author of novels such as "Strangers On a Train", "Price of Salt (aka Carol)" and "The Talented Mr Ripley", all of which were turned into artistic and financially successful films. I first came across the work of Highsmith in the 1980s during a period of unemployment. Unable to afford to buy books, I went to my local library looking for something I hadn't read before and came across a shelf consisting entirely of her novels. I borrowed a few, enjoyed them, borrowed some more and once back in work bought some. Most of her novels and short stories are dark mysteries in which murderers, thieves and con artists often get away with their crimes and in which morality is skewed. At her best, she bears comparison with the equally dark work of Graham Greene (who was an admirer of Highsmith's work). The one exception to this darkness is "The Price of Salt" (later republished as "Carol") which is one of the earliest novels to portray a lesbian relationship in a positive light. Highsmith herself lived openly as a lesbian at a time when, though not illegal like male homosexuality was, it was looked down on and could have seriously damaged her career and standing.
However, there is a much darker side to her. Her treatment of the women she claimed to love was appalling, often close to gaslighting and on one occasion went partying after a lover took an overdose of pills. She was also openly racist, sometimes publicly humiliating people of colour and believing that white people were superior. Even worse in some ways was her antisemitism. She referred to the holocaust as the "semicaust" because Hitler didn't kill all Jews. She also at times argued that Jews invented the holocaust because they liked to be persecuted. She seemed to rejoice in the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games. She also expressed support for the belief that a cabal of wealthy Jews was controlling society. Yet three of her most important lovers were Jewish women (does that perhaps explain the way she treated them?).
She also seemed to take pleasure in embarrassing friends in public. And she was an alcoholic who much of the time was drinking from breakfast to bedtime.
In this biography, Richard Bradford argues that she used her own life as the basis for the plots of her novels, often just changing the gender and/or nationality of the protagonist. Her most famous creation, Tom Ripley, is a conman who gets away with murder then takes on the persona of the man he murdered. He was the "hero" of five of her novels, with notes for a sixth one found after her death.
Does her misanthropy, racism and antisemitism invalidate her art? Or can we still enjoy the best of her work, perhaps with greater understanding of the source of her material? That really is an individual decision.
A case in point is the American writer Patricia Highsmith, author of novels such as "Strangers On a Train", "Price of Salt (aka Carol)" and "The Talented Mr Ripley", all of which were turned into artistic and financially successful films. I first came across the work of Highsmith in the 1980s during a period of unemployment. Unable to afford to buy books, I went to my local library looking for something I hadn't read before and came across a shelf consisting entirely of her novels. I borrowed a few, enjoyed them, borrowed some more and once back in work bought some. Most of her novels and short stories are dark mysteries in which murderers, thieves and con artists often get away with their crimes and in which morality is skewed. At her best, she bears comparison with the equally dark work of Graham Greene (who was an admirer of Highsmith's work). The one exception to this darkness is "The Price of Salt" (later republished as "Carol") which is one of the earliest novels to portray a lesbian relationship in a positive light. Highsmith herself lived openly as a lesbian at a time when, though not illegal like male homosexuality was, it was looked down on and could have seriously damaged her career and standing.
However, there is a much darker side to her. Her treatment of the women she claimed to love was appalling, often close to gaslighting and on one occasion went partying after a lover took an overdose of pills. She was also openly racist, sometimes publicly humiliating people of colour and believing that white people were superior. Even worse in some ways was her antisemitism. She referred to the holocaust as the "semicaust" because Hitler didn't kill all Jews. She also at times argued that Jews invented the holocaust because they liked to be persecuted. She seemed to rejoice in the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games. She also expressed support for the belief that a cabal of wealthy Jews was controlling society. Yet three of her most important lovers were Jewish women (does that perhaps explain the way she treated them?).
She also seemed to take pleasure in embarrassing friends in public. And she was an alcoholic who much of the time was drinking from breakfast to bedtime.
In this biography, Richard Bradford argues that she used her own life as the basis for the plots of her novels, often just changing the gender and/or nationality of the protagonist. Her most famous creation, Tom Ripley, is a conman who gets away with murder then takes on the persona of the man he murdered. He was the "hero" of five of her novels, with notes for a sixth one found after her death.
Does her misanthropy, racism and antisemitism invalidate her art? Or can we still enjoy the best of her work, perhaps with greater understanding of the source of her material? That really is an individual decision.
February 8, 2021
Thanks to Bloomsbury for an advance galley of this title, which came out in the US in print on Jan 19, 2021--
Patricia Highsmith's debut novel "Strangers on a Train" isn't a particular favorite of mine, but it's a book with a passage I'll never forget: the horribly visceral scene of Bruno murdering Miriam. So I was pretty disturbed to learn, from Richard Bradford's critical biography "Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires," that the strangulation description is quite similar to writing in Highsmith's own diary, where she often conflated feelings of obsessive love...with a desire to murder.
Highsmith is most known as the author of "The Talented Mr. Ripley," as well as for her open lesbianism and prodigious drinking habits. But Highsmith was also a heinous anti-Semite, a vociferous racist, a stalker, and a cruel and manipulative romantic partner. She habitually lied about everything--to the point that it's impossible to trust the accuracy of her own private diaries, which mention multiple people who no one else ever met. At one point, she saw a lover take an overdose of pills and alcohol, and then just left the apartment--apparently not caring if the woman died (surprise: she didn't). In other words, Highsmith was an awful person. Which begs the question: why write a biography of her (besides the timely fact that this year is the 100th anniversary of her birth)?
"Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires" is a consistently compelling quick read, which follows Highsmith's story fairly linearly from birth to death--chronicling all the books written and bridges burned along the way. Bradford's main project seems to be a type of biographical literary criticism, where he connects psychological and emotional aspects of Highsmith's personal life with the themes explored in her published works. Much of this analysis comes off as accurate: Highsmith obviously pulled from her life to write fiction, and she had a particular connection with Ripley (obsessively returning to the places where the book is based, justifying his behavior, etc), but other links seem like a stretch. Bradford frequently condemns Highsmith's penchant for self-diagnosis and her interest in quack doctors, but he certainly does a lot of psychologizing of his own.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy reading this book overall, and some of the anecdotes are incredibly amusing (i.e. imagining Highsmith challenging Chester Himes to an epic drinking contest at Yaddo, and then getting the teetotaling Flannery O'Connor drunk), but the bad stuff about Highsmith really tempers any appreciation. Particularly the fact that she only supported the Palestinian liberation cause because she was so anti-Semitic. I think that's the thing I won't forget from this book, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Patricia Highsmith's debut novel "Strangers on a Train" isn't a particular favorite of mine, but it's a book with a passage I'll never forget: the horribly visceral scene of Bruno murdering Miriam. So I was pretty disturbed to learn, from Richard Bradford's critical biography "Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires," that the strangulation description is quite similar to writing in Highsmith's own diary, where she often conflated feelings of obsessive love...with a desire to murder.
Highsmith is most known as the author of "The Talented Mr. Ripley," as well as for her open lesbianism and prodigious drinking habits. But Highsmith was also a heinous anti-Semite, a vociferous racist, a stalker, and a cruel and manipulative romantic partner. She habitually lied about everything--to the point that it's impossible to trust the accuracy of her own private diaries, which mention multiple people who no one else ever met. At one point, she saw a lover take an overdose of pills and alcohol, and then just left the apartment--apparently not caring if the woman died (surprise: she didn't). In other words, Highsmith was an awful person. Which begs the question: why write a biography of her (besides the timely fact that this year is the 100th anniversary of her birth)?
"Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires" is a consistently compelling quick read, which follows Highsmith's story fairly linearly from birth to death--chronicling all the books written and bridges burned along the way. Bradford's main project seems to be a type of biographical literary criticism, where he connects psychological and emotional aspects of Highsmith's personal life with the themes explored in her published works. Much of this analysis comes off as accurate: Highsmith obviously pulled from her life to write fiction, and she had a particular connection with Ripley (obsessively returning to the places where the book is based, justifying his behavior, etc), but other links seem like a stretch. Bradford frequently condemns Highsmith's penchant for self-diagnosis and her interest in quack doctors, but he certainly does a lot of psychologizing of his own.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy reading this book overall, and some of the anecdotes are incredibly amusing (i.e. imagining Highsmith challenging Chester Himes to an epic drinking contest at Yaddo, and then getting the teetotaling Flannery O'Connor drunk), but the bad stuff about Highsmith really tempers any appreciation. Particularly the fact that she only supported the Palestinian liberation cause because she was so anti-Semitic. I think that's the thing I won't forget from this book, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
January 19, 2021
Patricia Highsmith was not a nice person. Period. Full stop. No one, absolutely no one, will argue against that fact. She was erratic, crude, obnoxious, cruel, both sadistic and masochistic, and mentally unstable. The general consensus among those who knew her is that had Highsmith not been a successful writer she would have probably been institutionalized. If any of what you just read offends you in the least, then you should not read this book.
In Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires the author (Richard Bradford) does an admirable job of examining the correlation between Highsmith's personal life and demons with those of the fictional characters she created. The real life events and relationships that influenced and inspired her work and, in some cases, the way her fiction served as a kind of "revenge" mechanism for Highsmith. A fantasy reality that sometimes became embedded with the actual one.
The author offers critical assessments of Highsmith's most well-known works with examinations into how her life circumstances enhanced and hindered her endeavors. A lot of speculation as to motivations and thought processes. The author also looks deeper into Highsmith's diaries and notebooks with an eye towards determining fact from fiction and whether she was aware of how much "fantasy" she was documenting as reality (Conclussion? Yes and no, it's complicated).
While this book is an unvarnished look at a disturbed (and often disturbing) individual whose great talent was nearly eclipsed by her deviant tendencies the content is never presented in a salacious or sensationalist manner.
I have never read any other biographies on Highsmith (at least two are referenced as source material for this book) so I can't speculate as to how this one might compare to previous ones. In the end the reader is given an overview of Highsmith's life and work that will, at the very least, give some insight into the writer and her creations.
Not sure I would recommend it to the casual fan but I found it quite interesting.
This is adult stuff. R-rated. Sexual content, adult language, disturbing imagery. Not for the easily offended.
***I received a free digital copy of this title through NetGalley.
In Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires the author (Richard Bradford) does an admirable job of examining the correlation between Highsmith's personal life and demons with those of the fictional characters she created. The real life events and relationships that influenced and inspired her work and, in some cases, the way her fiction served as a kind of "revenge" mechanism for Highsmith. A fantasy reality that sometimes became embedded with the actual one.
The author offers critical assessments of Highsmith's most well-known works with examinations into how her life circumstances enhanced and hindered her endeavors. A lot of speculation as to motivations and thought processes. The author also looks deeper into Highsmith's diaries and notebooks with an eye towards determining fact from fiction and whether she was aware of how much "fantasy" she was documenting as reality (Conclussion? Yes and no, it's complicated).
While this book is an unvarnished look at a disturbed (and often disturbing) individual whose great talent was nearly eclipsed by her deviant tendencies the content is never presented in a salacious or sensationalist manner.
I have never read any other biographies on Highsmith (at least two are referenced as source material for this book) so I can't speculate as to how this one might compare to previous ones. In the end the reader is given an overview of Highsmith's life and work that will, at the very least, give some insight into the writer and her creations.
Not sure I would recommend it to the casual fan but I found it quite interesting.
This is adult stuff. R-rated. Sexual content, adult language, disturbing imagery. Not for the easily offended.
***I received a free digital copy of this title through NetGalley.
January 22, 2021
Patricia Highsmith was by all accounts a horrible person, who was beset with Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires.
Patricia was a drunk racist anti-Semite. She drank from morning to night. She stated that “black men become physically ill if they did not have sex many times a month” and were too “feckless and stupid to realize that unprotected intercourse led to pregnancy”. And that was in 1992–not the 1800s. Patricia berated her beloved Nazis for only killing half the Jews on earth instead of all of them. She thought Israel should be abolished and its lands returned to the Palestine’s. Yet she had long-term affairs with three Jewish women.
However, Patricia did have some great novels within her. The Talented Mr. Ripley series and Strangers on a Train being the most famous examples. She was tight with her money and died with an estate of more than three million dollars. So, despite her demons, she was successful in her art.
Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires is a well-researched biography about a woman who hid her demons from the public view. My issue with the book is the beginning is a slow slog through Patricia’s youth. However, once that part is over, the pacing picks up considerably. There is no argument that Patricia was a unique woman. So if that intrigues you, pick up this book. 3 stars.
Thanks to Bloomsbury USA and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.
Patricia was a drunk racist anti-Semite. She drank from morning to night. She stated that “black men become physically ill if they did not have sex many times a month” and were too “feckless and stupid to realize that unprotected intercourse led to pregnancy”. And that was in 1992–not the 1800s. Patricia berated her beloved Nazis for only killing half the Jews on earth instead of all of them. She thought Israel should be abolished and its lands returned to the Palestine’s. Yet she had long-term affairs with three Jewish women.
However, Patricia did have some great novels within her. The Talented Mr. Ripley series and Strangers on a Train being the most famous examples. She was tight with her money and died with an estate of more than three million dollars. So, despite her demons, she was successful in her art.
Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires is a well-researched biography about a woman who hid her demons from the public view. My issue with the book is the beginning is a slow slog through Patricia’s youth. However, once that part is over, the pacing picks up considerably. There is no argument that Patricia was a unique woman. So if that intrigues you, pick up this book. 3 stars.
Thanks to Bloomsbury USA and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.
July 8, 2024
I’m not sure if I’m only giving it two stars because Patricia Highsmith, whose books I have come to admire (Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley, to name two), turns out to have been a really, really nasty human being, major alcoholic and lesbian nymphomaniac— she claims to have sometimes had sex with 10 women per day— but also an unabashed Jew hater, in her words, and a snail lover who would cart around a dozen or two of the little critters in her purse and in her bra OR did I dislike it because the book, which I listened to, came off like a scandal sheet magazine that was read by the gayest sounding male reader to be had in central casting.
AND three of the women she professed to have been her true loves were Jewish, and she knew it, so what the heck?? Her writing talents, however, were undeniable, and I have seen other writers cite her as one of their inspirations, including the two-time Pulitzer prize winner Colson Whitehead, an African-American. Her opinions of African-Americans were almost as low as those of Jews.
I guess I assume like many artistic geniuses she was a troubled soul, I appreciate the books she left the world and hope she finally found peace in Switzerland where she had moved for the last several years of her life because, as she said, it made her think of what Hitler’s Arian visions could have come to. Yikes 😳
AND three of the women she professed to have been her true loves were Jewish, and she knew it, so what the heck?? Her writing talents, however, were undeniable, and I have seen other writers cite her as one of their inspirations, including the two-time Pulitzer prize winner Colson Whitehead, an African-American. Her opinions of African-Americans were almost as low as those of Jews.
I guess I assume like many artistic geniuses she was a troubled soul, I appreciate the books she left the world and hope she finally found peace in Switzerland where she had moved for the last several years of her life because, as she said, it made her think of what Hitler’s Arian visions could have come to. Yikes 😳
November 26, 2021
Hard to know what rating to give this book. It is obviously well-written and well-researched, so if those were the only criteria, I'd give it four or maybe even five stars. Unfortunately, the subject of the book, Patricia Highsmith, was both a talented writer (most famously, she wrote "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Strangers on a Train"), but a psychopath. Think I'm exaggerating? She called the Holocaust "the Semicaust" because it was only half successful. She didn't like being called an anti-Semite, considering "Jew hater" more precise. (She also hated blacks, Catholics, and many other groups.) She watched one of her lovers take eight sleeping pills in a suicide attempt, then went out to dinner. She also called her lover's dinner partner, telling him "She can't make it." When Highsmith returned to their apartment in the wee hours, she found her lover comatose. For some reason, she decided to call an ambulance. Her lover wasn't expected to survive, but did. Highsmith never visited her in the hospital. I got almost halfway through the book, then decided I'd read more than enough about this monster.
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