Highsmith, Patricia

Highsmith, Patricia, 1921–95, American novelist, b. Fort Worth, Tex., as Mary Patricia Plangman, grad. Barnard College (B.A. 1942). She first traveled to Europe in 1949 and moved there in 1963, living in Italy, France, and Switzerland. After the publication of her first novel, Strangers on a Train (1950, film by Alfred Hitchcock 1951), she was acclaimed a master of the novel of psychological menace. Dubbed a "poet of apprehension" by Graham Greene, Highsmith wrote more than 20 novels, the best known of which feature a handsome psychopath named Tom Ripley as their antihero. These include The Talented Mister Ripley (1955, films 1960 and 1999), Ripley's Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), and Ripley under Water (1991). In addition to her crime fiction, Highsmith wrote a novel of lesbian love, The Price of Salt (1952, originally pub. under the pseud. Claire Morgan), the nonfiction Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (1966, rev. ed. 1981), and the posthumously published novel Small g (1995, repr. 2004). Her chilling tales of crime and cruelty appeared in a number of collections as well as in Selected Stories (2001) and Nothing That Meets the Eye: The Uncollected Stories of Patricia Highsmith (2002).

Bibliography

See biographies by R. Harrison (1997) and A. Wilson (2003); N. Mawer, A Critical Study of the Fiction of Patricia Highsmith (2004).

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Highsmith, (Mary) Patricia (b. Plangman) (Claire Morgan, pen name) (1921–  ) writer; born in Fort Worth, Texas. She was raised by her grandparents until she was six, then lived with her mother and stepfather, Stanley Highsmith. She studied at Barnard (B.A., 1942), and worked as a comic strip artist. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train (1950), was made into a film (1951) directed by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenplay by Raymond Chandler. A prolific writer, she is considered a master of the suspense novel and is praised for her psychological insights. She spent much of her adult life in Europe and was based in Switzerland.