Product Review

The remarkable renaissance of Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories, featuring the groundbreaking novels Strangers on a Train and The Price of Salt as well as a trove of penetrating short stories. With a critical introduction by Joan Schenkar, situating Highsmith's classic works within her own tumultuous life, this book provides a useful guide to some of her most dazzlingly seductive writing. Strangers on a Train, transformed into a legendary film by Alfred Hitchcock, displays Highsmith's genius for psychological characterization and tortuous suspense, while The Price of Salt, with its lesbian lovers and a creepy PI, provides a thrilling and highly controversial depiction of "the love that dare not speak its name". This book firmly establishes Highsmith's centrality to American culture by presenting key works that went on to influence half a century of literature and film. Abandoned by the wider reading public in her lifetime, Highsmith finally gets the canonical recognition that is her due.