The Two Faces of January was published by Doubleday in 1964 and represents Highsmith’s most explicitly mythological novel. Set in Greece — Athens, Crete, and the islands — it transposes her characteristic themes of doubling, guilt, and fatal attraction onto a landscape saturated with classical associations. The novel’s title refers to Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and transitions, doorways and passages, and the narrative is structured around dualities: two men, two faces of a single psychological reality, two directions from which there is no escape.
The Novel
Chester MacFarland is a wealthy American living in Europe with his young wife Colette, running confidence schemes that are catching up with him. Rydal Keener is a young American drifter in Athens, educated, rootless, and living on a small income while vaguely pursuing archaeological interests. When Rydal encounters Chester in a hotel corridor, standing over the body of a man Chester has accidentally killed, an immediate bond forms — compounded of complicity, resemblance, and something approaching father-son attraction.
The three flee across Greece together. Chester sees in Rydal a younger version of himself — and suspects Rydal of wanting to replace him, both professionally and in Colette’s affections. Rydal is indeed drawn to Colette, but more deeply drawn to Chester himself, in whom he recognises a father figure to replace the real father with whom his relationship was poisonous.
Highsmith constructs the triangle with forensic psychological precision. The Oedipal dynamics are explicit but never schematic — Chester’s jealousy, Rydal’s fascination, Colette’s growing terror are all rendered with the exactness of lived experience rather than theoretical framework.
Oedipal Architecture
Highsmith was explicit about the novel’s psychoanalytic underpinnings. Rydal’s father died recently, and his grief is complicated by lifelong resentment. Chester — older, authoritative, criminal — fills the paternal void. But the attraction contains its own destruction: the son must eventually supplant the father, and the father must eventually destroy the son.
This dynamic gives the novel a tragic inevitability that distinguishes it from Highsmith’s other work. Where the Ripley novels are open-ended — Tom always escapes, always prospers — The Two Faces of January moves toward a classical tragic resolution. Someone must die, and the question is only who.
The Greek setting reinforces these mythological resonances. The Minoan labyrinth, the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, the Oresteia’s cycle of paternal murder and filial revenge — all shadow the narrative without being heavy-handedly invoked.
Publication and Reception
The first edition was published by Doubleday, New York, in 1964. First printings are identified by:
- Doubleday imprint on title page
- “First Edition” stated on the copyright page
- Price of $3.95 on dust jacket front flap
- Cloth binding with jacket
The UK edition was published by Heinemann (London, 1964).
Reviews were generally positive, with critics noting the novel’s ambitious psychological architecture and atmospheric Greek setting. The New York Times called it “a brooding, strangely compelling novel of suspense.”
Film Adaptation
Hossein Amini adapted and directed a film version in 2014, starring Viggo Mortensen as Chester, Oscar Isaac as Rydal, and Kirsten Dunst as Colette. The film was well received as a stylish period thriller, capturing the sun-baked Mediterranean atmosphere and the triangular tension, though it necessarily simplified Highsmith’s psychological complexity.
Collecting The Two Faces of January
First edition (Doubleday, 1964): Fine copies in dust jacket bring $200–$500. The novel had a modest print run typical of Highsmith’s American publications in the 1960s.
UK first edition (Heinemann, 1964): $150–$350 for fine copies with jacket.
Signed copies are scarce. Highsmith moved to Europe permanently in the early 1960s, and her American editions from this period were rarely available for signing.
The 2014 film adaptation increased interest in the title among collectors, and prices have risen modestly since. It remains a second-tier Highsmith collectible but is increasingly appreciated for its formal ambition and psychological depth.