Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith by
Andrew Wilson
pbk out May 04
(Bloomsbury)
at £8.99
This is the first full-length biography of a legendary mistress of psychological
suspense, the author of such memorable novels as 'The Talented Mr Ripley' and
'Stangers on a Train'. I guess it is also the first book about a crime writer to include a
nude photograph of its subject; is this a trend that will catch on? It weighs in at over
500 pages and is an exhaustive, if not exhausting, trawl through the life of a gifted and
an intriguing woman. Highsmith's many lesbian affairs (and one or two heterosexual
affairs) are chronicled at length and we are not spared information about her excessive
enthusiasm for vodka in her declining years. Wilson deals competently with the
novels (and it is fascinating to learn that, even when Highsmith was well-established,
'The Two Faces of January' was, despite extensive re-writing, rejected by the
legendary editor Joan Kahn) although he does not make much of an attempt to place
Highsmith's contribution to the development of the genre. Perhaps not surprisingly,
given the access he had to his subject's darkly self-revealing papers, his main focus is
on Highsmith the woman. Although his account is sympathetic, the overwhelming
impression is that Highsmith was deeply unhappy for much of her life. Despite all her
success, she died alone and a friend commented: 'It's no fun dying or being sick, but
all things considered I would say it was one of the lesser traumas in her life.' It is an
epitaph as chilling as any of Highsmith's fiction.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith by
Andrew Wilson
