The Highsmith Reader Hardcover by Patricia Highsmith;Joan Schenkar

Product Details

• Publisher: WW Norton (2010-11-23)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 736 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780393080131
• Item Weight: 1070.5 grams
• Dimensions: 23.88 x 16.76 x 4.06 cm

"Patricia Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing . . . bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night."—The New Yorker

The remarkable renaissance of Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories, featuring two groundbreaking novels as well as a trove of penetrating short stories. With a critical introduction by Joan Schenkar, situating Highsmith's classic works within her own tumultuous life, this book provides a useful guide to some of her most dazzlingly seductive writing. Strangers on a Train (1950), transformed into a legendary film by Alfred Hitchcock, displays Highsmith's genius for psychological characterization and tortuous suspense, while The Price of Salt (1952), with its lesbian lovers and a creepy PI, provides a thrilling and highly controversial depiction of "the love that dare not speak its name." Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories firmly establishes Highsmith's centrality to American culture by presenting key works that went on to influence a half-century of literature and film. Abandoned by the wider reading public in her lifetime, Highsmith finally gets the canonical recognition that is her due.

About the Author

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.

Joan Schenkar, the author of the highly acclaimed biography The Talented Miss Highsmith, lives in Paris and Greenwich Village.

Joan Schenkar, the author of the highly acclaimed biography The Talented Miss Highsmith, lives in Paris and Greenwich Village.