/lit/ — Read Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley and lo

That's the manliest hand I have ever seen.

Other Ripley books?
Or something different like The Price of Salt/Carol
I watched an adaptation of a short story of hers. Not sure of the name. Could look for a collection of those.

>>25335175 (OP)
Deep Water is a pretty good, grim-funny tale of a toxic marriage (they utterly loathe one another).

Edith's Diary is praised a lot but maybe that's because "downtrodden housewife driven to madness" is such a fashionable trope.

Those Who Walk Away is supposed to be good but I haven't read it.


I actually prefer her journals / notebooks to her fiction to be honest. The trouble is they've been expurgated by vile busybody editors who smugly state in the introduction "we removed some comments we feel should not get an airing". Oh well. Even mutilated they're good. Lots of incisive comments. She's very honest and not at all bonkers. I agree with most of what she says.

A few examples:

7/29/69
I can easily bear cold, loneliness, hunger and toothache, but I cannot bear noise, heat, interruptions, or other people.

1/30/70
To Franz Kafka today I lift my hat in respect. I fall on my knees. I cry briefly on my bed. I have spent the day fighting bureaucracy and have failed. Furthermore, they have billed me as usual. Money is the least of it. It is the time wasted, and the depressing sight of 30- and 40-year-old men delighted with their paper-pushing jobs, their dishonest profession, their power over honest people. It is the power of paper, of someone always above them to whom they say they are answerable. God fuck them when they die. Their God is ready to pay for a lay, anyway, so they can make a bit more money.

2/10/70
If you open the cupboard door, five people fall out. New York. Togetherness. Solitude. Beauty. People are beautiful until you have too many of them.

>>25335217
She was a lifelong smoker. Craziest thing is she was like only 35 in that photo

ah, patricia highsmith. one of the best examples of what lies within you head and what you eat and drink can rotten your looks.
nothing bad to say about her talent as a writer, though.

i still amusingly recall reading a story of hers which flabbergasted me in a way i was not expecting or used to. sadly, i can't recall the title, only that it was short.