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Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith

Andrew Wilson

4.03 · Rating details · 761 ratings · 86 reviews

For Beautiful Shadow, the first biography of Highsmith, British journalist Andrew Wilson mined the vast archive of diaries, notebooks, and letters she left behind, astonishing in their candor and detail. He interviewed her closest friends and colleagues as well as some of her many lovers. But Wilson also traces Highsmith's literary roots in the work of Poe, noir, and exist ...more

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Paperback, 465 pages

Published April 17th 2004 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (first published June 2nd 2003)

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Aug 21, 2019 Paul Bryant rated it it was ok

Shelves: abandoned, biography

I’m not really a fan of Patricia Highsmith but I do like a good biography. And this isn’t one. The other day I was checking up a fact about Truman Capote and picked up Gerald Clarke’s book and was quite lost for about an hour as Truman leaped and gamboled through the pages, born aloft like a bubble in the air of my room by the controlled excitement of Mr Clarke’s narrative. Of course, Truman was a very witty, gregarious person, full of life until the horrors descended. Whereas Patricia Highsmith ...more

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Sep 12, 2016 Jon Ureña rated it it was amazing

Shelves: writing, non-fiction, asperger-s, autism, mental-illness, biographies

A few years ago I found a quote (I love quotes), by a certain Amy Hempel, that intrigued me:

"I read about a famous mystery writer who worked for one week in a department store. One day she saw a woman come in and buy a doll. The mystery writer found out the woman’s name, and took a bus to New Jersey to see where the woman lived. That was all. Years later, she referred to this woman as the love of her life. It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodg A few years ago I found a quote (I love quotes), by a certain Amy Hempel, that intrigued me:

"I read about a famous mystery writer who worked for one week in a department store. One day she saw a woman come in and buy a doll. The mystery writer found out the woman’s name, and took a bus to New Jersey to see where the woman lived. That was all. Years later, she referred to this woman as the love of her life. It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it."

I wondered who that mystery writer could have been, and I also identified with a mind that would daydream an entire life out of a moment and follow that obsession. That "mystery writer" was Patricia Highsmith.

While I was reading her "This Sweet Sickness", about a loner unable to connect with people who obsesses over a woman he loves, to the point of building a complete second identity he would like to live, I identified with it, and how it was told, in a way that suggested that the writer was the kind of peculiar I was; hardly anyone knows about the depths of social blindness, isolation, anxiety and obsession (and attached malaises like obsessive-compulsive disorder and chronic depression) like autistic people.

Patricia Highsmith was a retiring, silent person with a tremendously dark interior world, who could not properly connect with anyone, who loved certain people when they were away but needed space when they were close. She considered herself to have a man's brain, but didn't want a man's body, and was attracted to women, but didn't particularly like them. She was a masochist who consistently "chose" to love women who bossed her around and hurt her. She smoked and drank so heavily that it destroyed her body, although, curiously enough, didn't seem to had affected her mind. Her instincts didn't align with the human world around her. She was hypersensitive to noises and being touched. She was clumsy and awkward. She was at her best when daydreaming or writing, which are forms of the same thing, but fell into horrible depressions the moment she came back to herself. She was never at ease with the world.

Almost everything about her screamed Asperger's to me, but I can't be objective about it. It was weird that nobody else caught it, until one of her friends did:

"In hindsight, I think Pat could have had a form of high-functioning Asperger's Syndrome. She had a lot of typical traits. She had a terrible sense of direction, she would always get lost and whenever she went to the hairdresser's she would have trouble parking even though she had been with me lots of times. She was hypersensitive to sound and had these communications difficulties. Most of us screen certain things, but she would spit out everything she thought. She was not aware of the nuances of conversation and she didn't realise when she had hurt other people. That was probably why her love affairs never lasted very long, because she couldn't overcome the difficulties in communicating. Although she didn't really understand other people - she had such a strange interior world - she was a fantastic observer. She would see things that an average person would never experience."

She wasn't a recluse, however, like some journalists called her. She kept plenty of friends, travelled and invited people over, people who tolerated how weird she was. She never made it as big as she deserved mostly because she didn't care to belong to a "writer's community", didn't like exposing herself to the public, and her stories didn't offer hope nor platitudes. On a personal note, as an aspiring author, I hate the "community building" and ego-boosting that getting together with other writers involves, and curiously enough almost never involves discussing how to write a good story with excellent prose.

Patricia was also a misanthrope who disliked and hated way more than she liked. She got in trouble for her opinions regarding black people, religion and Israel. Having been born clearly different, she was a hardcore individualist that intended people to take responsibility for themselves. During the last half of her life, and having been on the brink of bankruptcy, never knowing if the next book was going to sell, she was very stingy with money, but in her will she left her millions to a writer's retreat she spent a few weeks in while writing her first novel.

Despite all of her issues, reading about her has made me aware of a hole in the world, the kind that opens when a real human being goes away. I look forward to learning more about her, and about myself, while reading her stories. ...more

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Nov 29, 2019 Roman Clodia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A brisk, crisp 'life' of Patricia Highsmith. Wilson bases it on her journals, letters and interviews but keeps things moving and doesn't linger. In that sense, it's exactly the thing for someone who wants an overview of Highsmith's biography and a context for her writing without getting bogged down in detail.

It does become a tad repetitive as we keep being reminded that Highsmith was amoral, obsessed with issues of fractured identities and hidden selves, but it also manages to convey what a comp ...more

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Apr 28, 2016 Antigone rated it it was ok

Shelves: memoir-biography

Andrew Wilson's Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith is a comprehensive piece of reportage. Given access to the author's abundance of personal diaries, working journals, correspondence, and the many living acquaintances (family, friends, neighbors, publishers, lovers) quite willing to go on the record, you would expect little less. Yet the fundamental labor of the true biographer, at least from my perspective, is to go beyond the facts, beyond the proofs, beyond the dry history of a li Andrew Wilson's Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith is a comprehensive piece of reportage. Given access to the author's abundance of personal diaries, working journals, correspondence, and the many living acquaintances (family, friends, neighbors, publishers, lovers) quite willing to go on the record, you would expect little less. Yet the fundamental labor of the true biographer, at least from my perspective, is to go beyond the facts, beyond the proofs, beyond the dry history of a life to flesh out the human being. This is a labor Mr. Wilson has left largely undone. To be fair, his subject presents great challenge on this front...but, hey, he had to know that going in.

Patricia Highsmith had a troubled life that she worked very hard to keep private. The daughter of a Texas couple who divorced within a year of her birth, she was parked for the first four years of childhood with her aged grandmother. Deeply-conflicted over issues surrounding her identity and sexual orientation, she struggled with anorexia as a teen and funneled her search for self outward into literature, Christian Science and, later, the Communist party. She had difficulty coming to terms with where her libido led her. She felt very much a male imprisoned in a female body, and it is perhaps one of the grace notes of the transgender movement to enlighten the rest of us on just how complicated it can be to identify, in any specific sense, the nature of one's internal sexuality. Highsmith - in 1940, 1950, 1960 - possessed far less information to apply to her attempts at definition and so it comes as no real surprise to find her spending six months with a Manhattan psychotherapist in a concerted effort to turn straight. Equally unsurprising, it did not take.

Highsmith began writing in a professional sense during her college years, yet it wasn't until she'd attended Yaddo (through a recommendation from Tennessee Williams) that she managed to produce her first novel of note, Strangers on a Train. This was followed up shortly thereafter by The Price of Salt - published under a pseudonym and constituting a fictional exploration of a real-life encounter she'd had with a beautiful suburban housewife over a counter at Bloomingdales. The initial Ripley novel was percolating on her horizon. Prolific in every sense of the word, Wilson refers to the atmosphere of these febrile years as extreme - excessive in both drinking and "sexual buccaneering." Highsmith's literary voice, dark as it was, appeared very much to depend upon the light of fresh love in her life. Her relationships were legion, her mercurial spirit often cruel, her emotional comfort found (somewhat ironically) only in the arms of women who would dictate to her and ladle up a cauldroned feast of wretchedness and despair.

I am tempted to go on in an effort...I don't know...to right the wrong of this? But that's not why I'm here. It is important for you to know that I'm enriching the material in a way Andrew Wilson does not. Mr. Wilson remains at a relative remove. While he more than appreciates her literary genius, there is little wonder of the soul he chose to focus upon and this dispassionate approach is not appealing. Patricia Highsmith was a very complicated human being who, frankly, deserved far more in the way of insight than was on offer here. Hers was a hard life; bleak, restless, lonely, severe. Reporting it from such a distance, and with such aridity, elicits the impression of this woman as a sideshow. It is wrong-headed and, in certain respects, criminal. If there's one person you should be able to count on (posthumously) for a deep and abiding intimate concern, it should be your biographer. Yet once again she is marginalized. Objectified. Held at arm's length. And that just broke my heart.
...more

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Nov 22, 2008 Yooperprof rated it really liked it

Shelves: usa, lgbt, biography

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) is best known for her disturbing books about sensitive and sympathetic psychopathic murderers (i.e. "Strangers on a Train" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley") - and for the movies they've inspired. Andrew Wilson's biography is fascinating, well researched and convincing; I don't know if I'd want to have dinner with Miss Highsmith, but at least I think I can understand a little "where she's coming from." The author Wilson would probably make a good novelist himself; he u ...more

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Mar 12, 2017 Andy rated it really liked it

Ten pages into the book and I already prefer this far more than the Joan Schenkar bio. I could do without Wilson's exhaustive itineraries of Highsmith's European travels, which are over documented to the point of tedium and for the most part do not shed any light on her writing, except in a few scattered instances. Nevertheless, Andrew Wilson delves quite deftly into Pat's eventual descent into madness. ...more

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Jul 24, 2011 James Perkins rated it it was amazing

You may not have heard of Patricia Highsmith, but you've almost definitely seen the films Strangers on a Train or The Talented Mr Ripley, which were based on two of her most famous novels. I read this book on the advice of a literary magazine, and I can honestly say that it is one of the best biographies I have ever read. It was meticulously researched and extremely well-written, providing a model to all of us of what a good non-fiction book should be. Author Andrew Wilson did not try to avoid t ...more

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Nov 30, 2010 Cyanemi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography

So far so good. I am on page 250. From some of the reviews I thought PH would be portrayed as an absolutely horrid person. She isn't. She was eccentric and quite self involved. Maybe on the next 250 pages she becomes evil. (She becomes a little more horrid as she ages.)

This was one of the greatest Biographies I have ever read. It was interesting and moved quickly. This biography also had to use every psychological theory on the planet to explain Highsmith's bizarre behavior. She really did not ...more

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Aug 13, 2013 Michael Martin rated it really liked it

Andrew Wilson's Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith is a thorough look into the life and literary output of Patricia Highsmith. He documents (in sometimes too great detail) every quirk and eccentricity of the author's life, from her dozens of fragmented relationships, her stalking of women she barely knew, and her brusque unpleasantness towards almost everyone she ever came in contact yet.

Still, I found the book quite interesting, and fleshed out the personal demons which drove her to ...more

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Jun 14, 2008 Evan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone interested in Patricia Highsmith

I became interested in Patricia Highsmith after reading The Price of Salt. That book stayed with me. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I wanted to know more about it's author so I picked this up. It took me almost three weeks to read this. I don't generally like biographies or autobiographies but I am glad I endured and read this. It went through her work and life chapter by chapter and though I am unfamiliar with her other work, the exception being The Talented Mr. Ripley, it was never boring ...more

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Nov 16, 2008 Christine rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: All Highsmith fans

Recommended to Christine by: Amazon recommendation based on books that I've purchased.

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is probably my most difficult book review.

I'm an avid reader and reread Highsmith's Ripley books multiple times over the past 25+ years. I also read "The Blunderer" after having watched the movie with Maurice Ronet & Marina Vlady. And I read "Strangers on a Train", but have to admit that I like Hitchcock's adaptation better than the novel.

I read several Highsmith novels that I did not like, but way back in the 80's and 90's I just read a lot of Highsmith.

So finally discovering that there w ...more

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Apr 20, 2008 Blanca rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Highsmith fans

Shelves: booksihadtogiveupon, biography

This book was on my reading list for at about two years. It won an award, and is extensive, with a bounty of interesting insights about the psychology that motivated Highsmith's writing.

It was also exhausting, clunky and suffered from being obsessive and at times boring. I tried to be a dutiful reader because I have long admired the myth of Patricia Highsmith, but after a while, I lost interest in Highsmith's failings in relationships, and lost patience waiting to see how the million experience ...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Karen Pullen rated it it was amazing

I like to read biographies of writers; the best reveal how the unique personality and soul of the writer filters her talent, hard work, and dedication onto the page. Wilson accomplishes this goal in this beautifully written book. Wilson had access to her years of detailed journals, so this is as complete as picture as one could hope for.

It's hard to read parts of Beautiful Shadow because Highsmith was obviously a troubled woman, misanthropic, alcoholic and prone to serial passionate relationship ...more

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Dec 03, 2018 carlageek rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mid-century-madness

I have strong feelings and complex thoughts about Highsmith, both the woman and the writer. Wilson does too, and he expresses them in a compassionate book that probably whitewashes the absolute worst that the woman could sometimes be, while approaching the writer with an appealing mixture of analysis and reverence.

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Apr 03, 2021 Patricia rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography, non-fiction

Every so often one comes across a biography whose subject is as gripping as her work. Patricia Highsmith is one such person. I was unfamiliar with Highsmith's work (ok, I had seen one Ripley film) until I saw a play, Switzerland by Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith inspired by Highsmith's life and work. It must have been at this time that I bought "Beautiful Shadow" which lay dormant on my bookshelf for 7 years. What a treat to discover it! Although it is over 500 pages, this book has be ...more

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Jun 18, 2007 Sarah rated it it was ok

Shelves: completedreading

Patricia Highsmith's biography was just published. Recently deceased, she wrote very popular murder fiction most famously The Talented Mr. Ripley and succeeding novels about the maybe homosexual murderer and con artist Tom Ripley. In my quest to read about the lives of women famous in their own right, she is definitely a strong example: a lesbian, she never married nor settled down with a lover, was not close to either parent, and as far as I can see owes her entire fame solely to her own determ ...more

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Sep 19, 2016 Amy rated it liked it

I haven't read many biographies, but have been driven in some cases by interest in the lives of authors I enjoy. Once again, I am confirmed in my opinion that I would be quite happy never meeting those who create works I love. (One monumental undertaking was the three-volume bio of Graham Greene, unsurprisingly a huge fan of Patricia Highsmith.)

Given the characters she creates, with their indifferent approach to morality, Ms. Highsmith's social diffidence and misanthropy is not surprising. Peopl ...more

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Nov 21, 2010 Cateline rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Tragic life, very detailed bio of Patricia Highsmith based on her own diaries, notebooks and friends testimony. Wilson also covers the writing and shaping of her novels and short stories attaching them to her life's struggles. Amazing woman, tragic, ahead of her time...Highsmith was a force to be reckoned with to say the least.
Recommended. ...more

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Mar 21, 2019 C.C. Yager rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019-reading-list

Fat and juicy, this biography of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson plunges into the writer's life and fascinations, revealing her unique take on life. About 2/3 of the way through, I began to feel sad for this woman whose genius created Thomas Ripley, Strangers on a Train and the uncomfortable reader experience of reading a story from the point of view of the protagonist anti-hero who was often a murderer. She was fascinated with the psychopathic, the dark side, and by all accounts, possessed Fat and juicy, this biography of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson plunges into the writer's life and fascinations, revealing her unique take on life. About 2/3 of the way through, I began to feel sad for this woman whose genius created Thomas Ripley, Strangers on a Train and the uncomfortable reader experience of reading a story from the point of view of the protagonist anti-hero who was often a murderer. She was fascinated with the psychopathic, the dark side, and by all accounts, possessed a hearty black humor. She struggled to connect with people, however, and drank alcohol heavily for most of her life. Her love affairs left her feeling empty and in pain, and she chose to live in Europe because American society disgusted her. Unique, different, a misanthrope, and eccentric, she nevertheless wrote stories that would get under the skin and stay there.

This biography follows Highsmith's life chronologically, covering her tumultuous childhood and adolescence, her striving for freedom in school, at Barnard College, and then with her writing. She never really considered doing anything else with her life, but she did take retail jobs as well as writing jobs to pay the bills. She was honest with herself about her sexuality, but she kept it private . As time went on, she drew herself into herself more and more, finding it difficult to make deep connections with people but still wanting people in her life. As a writer, I found myself relating to her creative process, her need to write and tell stories. I was surprised to learn that she also wrote poetry, and she enjoyed drawing as well as painting. One of her friends later in life speculated that Highsmith may have had Asperger's. I was also surprised at how sensitive she was to sound -- she couldn't stand loud sound and being in a room full of people overwhelmed her senses to such a degree that she had to leave.

As I read this biography, I felt sadder and sadder for its subject, praise for Andrew Wilson who captured the pain and struggle in her life so well. She was never satisfied with herself as a person, and probably didn't like herself very much either. What kind of astounded me was that she couldn't see herself as a character in the story of her life, and that as the writer of the story, could choose to change and do things differently so that she'd be more satisfied and happier with herself. Although, perhaps later in life she thought that it was too late for her. I don't know. I just found the way she lived very sad. She was clearly in psychological distress.

Well written, thorough, sensitive but honest, this biography held my attention on every page. My only quibble is actually rather substantial -- whoever proofed the galleys of this edition did a truly lousy job. Typos, misspellings, dropped words, wrong pronouns, and clumsy syntax marred the reading experience. I wonder what Patricia Highsmith would have thought.

I highly recommend this biography to any and all Highsmith fans, and any readers curious about what the creator of Tom Ripley was like. He and Highsmith were probably not that far apart. ...more

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May 11, 2014 Kaharrall rated it really liked it

Andrew Wilson's biography of Patricia Highsmith is an engaging read from start to finish. He pays his subject the compliment of using prose as clear as her own to tell her story. Highsmith was a devoted diarist, letter writer, and keeper of detailed notebooks of all her background writing work. Andrew Wilson draws on all of this material plus his own interviews with many of her acquaintances, friends and lovers to produce a very detailed narrative of her life. He presents the testimony, opinion Andrew Wilson's biography of Patricia Highsmith is an engaging read from start to finish. He pays his subject the compliment of using prose as clear as her own to tell her story. Highsmith was a devoted diarist, letter writer, and keeper of detailed notebooks of all her background writing work. Andrew Wilson draws on all of this material plus his own interviews with many of her acquaintances, friends and lovers to produce a very detailed narrative of her life. He presents the testimony, opinions, and feelings of many others present at events, both great and small, in her life. He gives plot synopses of her major novels and has a good gallop around the critical reception following each publication.

Some critics of this biography have taken Wilson to task for the sheer volume of his detail; but, I cannot think of anything in this book that I wouldn't want to know.

Patricia Highsmith is most famous for a small number of tragic suspense novels in which little shams and mistakes lead to catastrophes. Her narrative point of view is usually through one or two unreliable, amoral, self-justifying individuals, such as her most famous creation, Tom Ripley. The reader sympathises with and then begins to excuse the narrator and is finally surprised to find herself hoping that he (always he) gets away with murder. She is the author of "Carol" (originally published as "The Price of Salt"), a lesbian romance and a departure from her suspense novels. She also wrote many short stories, some with quite vicious plots, and comment articles and travel writing.

She had a unique talent and some of my curiosity as to her thought processes and writing methods was answered by Andrew Wilson's book. She was born in Texas, educated in New York, and lived most of her adult life outside of the United States, in England, France, and the Italian part of Switzerland. She had many good friends, including Graham Greene (whom she never met in the flesh) to whom she wrote volumes of letters. She had many lovers; but, could not maintain an intimate relationship for more than a few months. All her life, she protested her love of solitude and Andrew Wilson reveals with what labours she filled that solitude.

I bought "Beautiful Shadow" in the week that it was first published in 2003.I didn't start to read it until a few days ago and suddenly, notice of the work of Patricia Highsmith is building in the media again. Her books are being reprinted and a film of her novel "The Two Faces of January" is in release. And in a real Patricia Highsmith moment, who should I hear on the radio this past Sunday but Andrew Wilson discussing this biography and the novel "Carol"! It is great to hear of her work again. ...more

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Jan 23, 2021 Phillip rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, literary-criticism, biography, queer

thank you, andrew wilson, for this excellent book.

i'm so glad i came back to this biography of highsmith - i have gained so much respect for her, it offered insights that confirmed many of my hunches about choices she made in her writing, and it offered enormous inspiration as a fellow artist to steer a constant path and never compromise.

there's really a lot to say here, but i want to be brief, as was highsmith's style in her lean, no-nonsense prose, which produced a kind of invisible style. by thank you, andrew wilson, for this excellent book.

i'm so glad i came back to this biography of highsmith - i have gained so much respect for her, it offered insights that confirmed many of my hunches about choices she made in her writing, and it offered enormous inspiration as a fellow artist to steer a constant path and never compromise.

there's really a lot to say here, but i want to be brief, as was highsmith's style in her lean, no-nonsense prose, which produced a kind of invisible style. by removing stylistic artifice, she places the reader in an uncomfortable position with her characters, many of whom are deeply conflicted, obsessed, or wracked with guilt.

i admire her courage as a lesbian living in homophobic america - in the 1950's in particular, when you could be arrested just for being gay. she never came out, and i respect that in her case - her generation was a different time with different conditions. instead, she chose to live in exile, outside the america which, in many ways, broke her heart; a country that even failed to publish many of her later works.

she wrote about people who repressed their urges, their passions, their feelings, their desires, and in doing so, their spirits were ruptured, their emotions distorted, and their behaviors are the stuff of criminals. she traces the connection between crime and the repression americans often accept without questioning. highsmith questions it in every book (that i've read so far) ... she took the whodunit genre and turned it on its head, establishing, instead a genre of whydunit. (i stole that word from the book - it's just too good).

and so, i cried at the end of the final chapter when her body gave out and she expired. i want to be able to write to her, and let her know that she was the most beautiful shadow in all her complicated and conflicting habits, and i am left inspired to do my best, to work harder, to cut the artifice and get to the marrow, to reveal the truth in my own art of what it is to be alive, and, in particular, to live in this deeply conflicted country of ours. ...more

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Jul 12, 2016 O Babs rated it liked it

Shelves: author-biography

First I was a fan and avid reader of Highsmith novels. When I wanted to understand more about the mind who created these chilling tales of the "Sociopath Next Door," I looked for a biography. This was published a year or so after I began looking. Great timing, Mr. Wilson!

Highsmith's life was tortuous and at times tortured. While she was still in her mother's womb, her mother drank turpentine in a vain effort at self-abortion. It failed, but the story persisted, and Patricia Highsmith grew up kno ...more

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May 22, 2012 David rated it liked it

Shelves: biography

A very sad book about one of my favorite mystery writers. Wilson's relating of Highsmith life reads like a tragedy--so much intelligence and charisma seemingly unfocused and therefore less effective than a more disciplined writer may have accomplished. If any credence can be placed in this biography, Highsmith was a character consumed by her own passion, and delayed by her own dalliance.

Still, with such writings as the Ripliad to her credit, the woman produced more good writing than most author ...more

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Sep 13, 2014 Mary Dee rated it it was amazing

I have read most everything that Patricia Highsmith has published over the last decade or so. I have also read the other biographies written about her. IMHO, Beautiful Shadow is the best of the lot. Highsmith was a highly gifted and yet extremely complex study in opposites. People loved her work, but a majority of those who knew her personally found her abusive and self-deluded. Ultimately, she left this country altogether to live anonymously in Switzerland. The final straw (for me!) was finding ...more

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Jun 11, 2009 Austen to Zafón rated it liked it

Shelves: bio-memoir

I've enjoyed Highsmith's books and I knew that she was a difficult person. This book portrays her compassionately, but realistically. She wasn't always kind to those around her and she had many anxieties and dark thoughts. If you've read any of her books, you'd guess as much! The 50's were a difficult time to be a lesbian and having to hide her relationships didn't help. The biographer did extensive research, (even going as far as finding out who "Carol," the object of infatuation in The Price o ...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Gordon rated it really liked it

Shelves: school

I liked this biography. It is apparently not the best one out. For people familiar with Strangers on a Train by Hitchcock Hightsmith is the writer as she is of many other novels based on her books. As I read the book, I realized that Wilson did not get the difference between anti-semitic and anti-Israel. Highsmith except for her predictable prejudice against blacks and urban problems was a doctrinaire liberal of the Roosevelt era. Her insistence on existential approach for the artist, her devoti ...more

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Jul 16, 2015 Kerry rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, great-reads

Andrew Wilson delves with clarity into the detail of the life of writer Patricia Highsmith and presents her 'warts and all'.

This is how one of Highsmith's friends described her: "She never showed her feelings and I never knew what she thought of me. If someone reached out to touch or greet her she would always take one or two steps back. Yet her face was full of life and everything she thoguht or felt you could see in her eyes.'

It was a fascinating insight into Highsmith's creative process and ...more

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Aug 03, 2008 Shyrl rated it it was amazing

Brilliant biography of a talented woman with a penchant for observing the chiaroscuro elements in life. Wilson has an uncanny knack for articulating the challenges in Patricia Highsmith's life and career. She was far more popular in Europe than she ever was in the U.S., although one of her books was made into an Alfred Hitchcock movie, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. ...more

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Apr 14, 2009 Noriyko rated it really liked it

Patricia Highsmith is the author of the Talented Mr. Ripley series, Strangers on a Train,The price of Salt, and many other mind twisting who done it's! Patricia, as is the case with so many talented artist appears to be a quite a few steps ahead of her time. She lived a fascinating yet unsettled life. Murder in most of her writing seems to be the rule instead of an agonizing option. So far, I am digging this bio ...more

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Sep 15, 2011 Nik rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

This is one of the best biographies I've ever read. It is obviously well researched, covers a large amount of ground (and makes it interesting!) and is neither overly sympathetic nor censorious. The author seems to have gone into this book without any other aim than to write an interesting account of a writer's life. And full credit to him, he has done.

Patricia Highsmith is a fascinating character, albeit someone who ...more

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About Andrew Wilson

Andrew Wilson

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About himself:

"I'm a journalist and author. My work has appeared in the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Daily Telegraph, the Observer, the Sunday Times, the Independent on Sunday, the Daily Mail, the New Statesman and the Evening Standard magazine."

Source: http://www.andrewwilsonauthor.co.uk/d... ...more

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Explore 48 Fascinating Lives in These New and Upcoming Memoirs

A life well-lived can make the perfect page-turning tale, complete with drama, sadness, hilarity, love, and triumph over adversity. Our latest...

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“[Patricia Highsmith] was a figure of contradictions: a lesbian who didn't particularly like women; a writer of the most insightful psychological novels who, at times, appeared bored by people; a misanthrope with a gentle, sweet nature.” — 4 likes

“[Patricia Highsmith] was overwhelmed by sensory stimulation - there were too many people and too much noise and she just could not handle the supermarket. She continually jumped, afraid that someone might recognise or touch her. She could not make the simplest of decisions - which type of bread did she want, or what kind of salami? I tried to do the shopping as quickly as possible, but at the check-out she started to panic. She took out her wallet, knocked off her glasses, dropped the money on the floor, stuff was going all over the place.” — 3 likes

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