Overview

Patricia Highsmith, author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley, had more than her fair share of secrets. During her life, she felt uncomfortable about discussing the source of her fiction and refused to answer questions about her private life. Yet after her death in February 1995, Highsmith left behind a vast archive of personal documents--diaries, notebooks, and letters--which detail the links between her life and her work. Drawing on these intimate papers, together with material gleaned from her closest friends and lovers, Andrew Wilson has written the first biography of an author described by Graham Greene as the poet of apprehension. Wilson illuminates the dark corners of Highsmith's life, casts light on mysteries of the creative process, and reveals the secrets that the writer chose to keep hidden until after her death.

Full Product Details

9798212271646

Table of Contents

Reviews

A fascinating, beautifully balanced, and meticulously researched biography, bringing us as close to understanding Highsmith as we are ever likely to get. -- Sunday Telegraph (UK) An exemplary biography of a tortured, difficult, and outstandingly gifted human being. -- Sunday Times (London) Excellent and outstandingly readable...Brilliant and compelling. -- Daily Mail (UK) Wilson has delved with extraordinary diligence, and everything he has unearthed is remarkable. -- Mail on Sunday (London) Wilson's portrait of Highsmith...is as haunting and as chilling as the stories and novels Highsmith crafted...The biographer's exhaustive attention to detail coupled with his access to Highsmith's journals and letters, and extensive interviews with her friends, lovers and associates, allow him to reveal in excruciating detail this very private person. -- Publishers Weekly

A fascinating, beautifully balanced and meticulously researched biography, bringing us as close to understanding Highsmith as we are ever likely to get. -- Sunday Telegraph (UK) An exemplary biography of a tortured, difficult, and outstandingly gifted human being. -- Sunday Times (London) Excellent and outstandingly readable...Brilliant and compelling. -- Daily Mail (UK) Wilson has delved with extraordinary diligence, and everything he has unearthed is remarkable. -- Mail on Sunday (London) Wilson's portrait of Highsmith...is as haunting and as chilling as the stories and novels Highsmith crafted...The biographer's exhaustive attention to detail coupled with his access to Highsmith's journals and letters, and extensive interviews with her friends, lovers and associates, allow him to reveal in excruciating detail this very private person. -- Publishers Weekly

Author Information

Andrew Wilson is a novelist, biographer, and journalist. He has won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Biography and the Lambda Literary Award for Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith. His nonfiction books also include biographies of Sylvia Plath, Alexander McQueen, Harold Robbins, and a group biography of the survivors of the Titanic. His first novel, The Lying Tongue, was shortlisted for the Jelf First Novel Award. Laurel Lefkow is an accomplished radio actress and winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards for audiobook narration. Her many theater credits include Look Back in Anger, Little Foxes, The Heiress, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Boy Next Door. On television she can be seen in A Class Act, Small Metal Jacket, and The Perfect Family.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available