Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) — born Mary Patricia Plangman on 19 January 1921 in Fort Worth, Texas — was the most unsettling crime novelist of the twentieth century. Her fiction does not work like conventional crime fiction: there is no detective, no restoration of order, no moral satisfaction. Her criminals — Tom Ripley above all — get away with it, and the reader is implicated in wanting them to.

Life and Career

Highsmith had a difficult childhood — her parents divorced before her birth, and she had a fraught relationship with her mother, which she explored relentlessly in her fiction. She studied at Barnard College and worked writing comic-book scripts, including for Captain America, before publishing her first novel.

Strangers on a Train (1950) — about two men who meet on a train and agree to “exchange” murders — was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951 and established Highsmith’s reputation. The novel’s premise — the complicity between a “good” man and a “bad” one — is the template for much of her subsequent work.

The Price of Salt (1952, published pseudonymously as “Claire Morgan”) — a lesbian love story with a happy ending — was unprecedented in American fiction. Highsmith did not acknowledge authorship until 1990, when it was reissued under her own name as Carol. Todd Haynes’s 2015 film adaptation brought the novel to a new audience.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) is her masterpiece. Tom Ripley — sent to Italy to retrieve a rich young man, Dickie Greenleaf, who has settled in a village near Naples — kills Greenleaf, assumes his identity, and inherits his money. What makes the novel extraordinary is not the plot but the reader’s experience: Highsmith makes us root for Ripley, understand his logic, share his relief when he escapes detection. The moral complicity is the point.

Four more Ripley novels followed: Ripley Under Ground (1970), Ripley’s Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), and Ripley Under Water (1991). The series follows Ripley into prosperous middle age — he settles in a French villa, marries a wealthy woman, collects art, and kills only when necessary.

Major Works and Themes

Highsmith’s great subject is the psychology of guilt — or, more precisely, the psychology of its absence. Her criminals are not tormented by remorse; they are tormented by the fear of detection. Her “innocent” characters are frequently more disturbed than her criminals. The boundary between the normal and the pathological is Highsmith’s territory, and she insists that it is more permeable than we want to believe.

Her prose style is flat, precise, and deliberately unadorned — the style itself embodies the affectlessness of her characters. She is closer to Camus than to Raymond Chandler.

Critical Reception and Legacy

Highsmith was always more admired in Europe — particularly in France, where she was regarded as a major literary figure — than in the United States, where her work was classified as genre fiction. Her reputation has grown enormously since her death, and she is now recognised as one of the most important American novelists of the twentieth century.

Key Works

• Strangers on a Train (1950)
• The Price of Salt / Carol (1952)
• The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
• Ripley’s Game (1974)
• The Tremor of Forgery (1969)

Collecting Highsmith

Strangers on a Train (1950, Harper & Brothers) — the debut — is very scarce: $500–$2,000+.

The Price of Salt (1952, Coward-McCann, as “Claire Morgan”) — the pseudonymous lesbian novel — is extremely scarce in first edition: $1,000–$5,000+.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955, Coward-McCann) brings $300–$1,500.

Later Ripley novels are more available. Highsmith moved to Europe permanently in 1963 and did not do extensive American book signings. Signed copies are relatively scarce compared to other writers of her stature. The European editions — particularly the French Calmann-Lévy editions — are also collected.