Tuesday, April 13, 2021

The Talented Ms. Highsmith

As we approach the 22nd anniversary of our founding (May 11, 1999), I've been spending some time perusing the long list of "Books We Have Read" (scroll down on the blog homepage for that). For example, I see that we read two novels by Patricia Highsmith in our early days: The Talented Mr. Ripley in 2000 and The Price of Salt in 2005. Over the past several months, the New York Times' T Book Club has run three essays about those novels and their film adaptations that those of you who enjoy her work should check out. In reverse chronological order, they are:


April 8: Kerry Manders considered the question, "Do Patricia Highsmith Novels Make Good Films?" 


March 24: Edmund White finds in The Talented Mr. Ripley a "Shape-Shifting Protagonist Who's Up to No Good." (Among the many things I learned is that the novel is just the first in a series of five!)


Nov. 12, 2020: Megan O'Grady explains how that novel "foretold our age of grifting."


Last but not least, in January Richard Bradford published a  biography of the novelist: Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith. Here's Wendy Smith's review in the Post.





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