Patrica Highsmith is a suspense/crime writer who did much of her work during the middle of the 20th century. Her most famous works are her novels THE TALENTED MR.RIPLEY and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN which Alfred Hitchcock made into an aclaimed movie. Sadly Patricia Highsmith was always much more widely read in Europe than in America and it's only been in recent years that her work has recieved well deserved recognition.
A lot has been said lately about Patricia Highsmith and I have nothing to add to it so I'm not going to write a piece on her,instead I'm going to share bits from several important reviews and essays which have appeared since her novels have been published in all new editions here in the U.S.
This is a very important and often over looked writer you really should check out.
Thirty years before David Lynch's BLUE VELVET, Highsmith's novels and stories shattered the cool veneer of idyllic American suburbia.
-Book jacket
Great writers view the world askew,and in their art they reflect our world back to us,slightly distorted.
-Book jacket
THE SELECTED STORIES reveals Highsmith's deft and exacting style,her incisive satirical intelligence,and her faultless eye for depicting the inner tremblings of human character.
-Book jacket
Patricia Highsmith is often called a mystery or crime writer,which is a bit like calling Picasso a draftsman.
-Clevland Plain Dealer
Patricia Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing...bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night.
-The New Yorker
Nothing is certain when we have crossed this frontier. It is not the world as we once believed we knew it,but it is frighteningly more real to us than the house next door.Actions are sudden and impromptu and the motives sometimes so inexplicable that we simply have to accept them on trust.I beleive because it is impossible.Her characters are irrational,and they leap to life in their very lack of reason;suddenly we realize how unbelievably rational most fiction characters are as they lead their lives from A to Z,like commuters always taking the same train.
-Graham Greene
There is no one like Patricia Highsmith
-Time
If you like Roald Dahl you will probably like Patricia Highsmith. I recommend you read THE SELECTED STORIES OF PATRICIA HIGHSMITH to break the ice.
I love to read.I read about hundred books a year(no joke,i list them)...since i shared this fact on my profile and invited other book worms to write me i've recieved a ton of mail from others who love books.This is wonderful,i hope
i continue to get a lot of this mail...but because i get so much of it and i need a new project i've decided to create this blog about books.I hope you like it.
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*Ruby*