Patricia Highsmith (born Mary Patricia Plangman; January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995)[1] was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her
psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character
Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novels and numerous short stories throughout her career spanning nearly five decades, and her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her writing derived influence from
existentialist literature,[2] and questioned notions of
identity and popular
morality.[3] She was dubbed "the poet of
apprehension" by novelist
Graham Greene.[4]
Highsmith was born Mary Patricia Plangman in
Fort Worth, Texas. She was the only child of artists Jay Bernard Plangman (1889–1975), who was of German descent,[6] and Mary Plangman (née Coates; September 13, 1895 – March 12, 1991). The couple divorced ten days before their daughter's birth.[7]
In 1927, Highsmith, her mother and her adoptive stepfather, artist Stanley Highsmith, whom her mother had married in 1924, moved to New York City.[7] When she was 12 years old, Highsmith was sent to Fort Worth and lived with her maternal grandmother for a year.[citation needed] She called this the "saddest year" of her life and felt "abandoned" by her mother. She returned to New York to continue living with her mother and stepfather, primarily in
Manhattan, but also in
Astoria, Queens.
According to Highsmith, her mother once told her that she had tried to
abort her by drinking
turpentine,[8] although a biography of Highsmith indicates Jay Plangman tried to persuade his wife to have the abortion but she refused.[7] Highsmith never resolved this
love–hate relationship, which reportedly haunted her for the rest of her life, and which she fictionalized in "
The Terrapin", her short story about a young boy who stabs his mother to death.[7] Highsmith's mother predeceased her by only four years, dying at the age of 95.[8]
Highsmith's grandmother taught her to read at an early age, and she made good use of her grandmother's extensive library. At the age of nine, she found a resemblance to her own imaginative life in the case histories of The Human Mind by
Karl Menninger, a popularizer of
Freudian analysis.[7]
Based on the recommendation from
Truman Capote, Highsmith was accepted by the
Yaddo artist's retreat during the summer of 1948, where she worked on her first novel, Strangers on a Train.[12][13]
To all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle—may they never give me peace.
– Patricia Highsmith, "My New Year's Toast", journal entry, 1947[17]
According to her biographer, Andrew Wilson, Highsmith's personal life was a "troubled one". She was an
alcoholic who, allegedly, never had an intimate relationship that lasted for more than a few years, and she was seen by some of her contemporaries and acquaintances as
misanthropic and hostile.[18] Her chronic alcoholism intensified as she grew older.[19][20]
She famously preferred the company of animals to that of people and stated in a 1991 interview, "I choose to live alone because my imagination functions better when I don't have to speak with people."[21]
Otto Penzler, her U.S. publisher through his Penzler Books imprint,[22] had met Highsmith in 1983, and four years later witnessed some of her theatrics intended to create havoc at dinner tables and shipwreck an evening.[23] He said after her death that "[Highsmith] was a mean, cruel, hard, unlovable, unloving human being ... I could never penetrate how any human being could be that relentlessly ugly. ... But her books? Brilliant."[24]
Other friends, publishers, and acquaintances held different views of Highsmith. Editor Gary Fisketjon, who published her later novels through
Knopf, said that "She was very rough, very difficult ... But she was also plainspoken, dryly funny, and great fun to be around."[24] Composer
David Diamond met Highsmith in 1943 and described her as being "quite a depressed person—and I think people explain her by pulling out traits like cold and reserved, when in fact it all came from depression."[25]J. G. Ballard said of Highsmith, "The author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley was every bit as deviant and quirky as her mischievous heroes, and didn't seem to mind if everyone knew it."[26] Screenwriter
Phyllis Nagy, who adapted The Price of Salt into the 2015 film Carol, met Highsmith in 1987 and the two remained friends for the rest of Highsmith's life.[27] Nagy said that Highsmith was "very sweet" and "encouraging" to her as a young writer, as well as "wonderfully funny."[28][29]
Highsmith loved cats, and she bred about three hundred
snails in her garden at home in
Suffolk, England.[31] Highsmith once attended a London
cocktail party with a "gigantic handbag" that "contained a head of lettuce and a hundred snails" which she said were her "companions for the evening."[31]
She loved
woodworking tools and made several pieces of furniture. Highsmith worked without stopping. In later life, she became stooped, with an
osteoporotic hump.[7] Though the 22 novels and 8 books of short stories she wrote were highly acclaimed, especially outside of the United States, Highsmith preferred her personal life to remain private.[32]
A lifelong diarist, Highsmith left behind eight thousand pages of handwritten notebooks and diaries.[33]
Sexuality
As an adult, Patricia Highsmith's sexual relationships were predominantly with women.[34][35] She occasionally engaged in sex with men without physical desire for them, and wrote in her diary: "The male face doesn't attract me, isn't beautiful to me."[36][a] She told writer
Marijane Meaker in the late 1950s that she had "tried to like men. I like most men better than I like women, but not in bed."[37] In a 1970 letter to her stepfather Stanley, Highsmith described sexual encounters with men as "steel wool in the face, a sensation of being raped in the wrong place—leading to a sensation of having to have, pretty soon, a boewl [sic] movement," stressing, "If these words are unpleasant to read, I can assure you it is a little more unpleasant in bed."[34] Phyllis Nagy described Highsmith as "a lesbian who did not very much enjoy being around other women" and the few sexual dalliances she had had with men occurred just to "see if she could be into men in that way because she so much more preferred their company."[27]
In 1943, Highsmith had an affair with artist Allela Cornell who, despondent over
unrequited love from another woman, died by suicide in 1946 by drinking
nitric acid.[12]
During her stay at Yaddo, Highsmith met writer Marc Brandel, son of author
J. D. Beresford.[34] Even though she told him about her
homosexuality,[34] they soon entered into a short-lived relationship.[38] He convinced her to visit him in
Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he introduced her to Ann Smith, a painter and designer with a previous métier as a Vogue fashion model, and the two became involved.[34] After Smith left Provincetown, Highsmith felt she was "in prison" with Brandel and told him she was leaving. "[B]ecause of that I have to sleep with him, and only the fact that it is the last night strengthens me to bear it." Highsmith, who had never been sexually exclusive with Brandel, resented having sex with him.[39] Highsmith temporarily broke off the relationship with Brandel and continued to be involved with several women, reuniting with him after the well-received publication of his new novel. Beginning November 30, 1948, and continuing for the next six months, Highsmith underwent psychoanalysis in an effort "to regularize herself sexually" so she could marry Brandel. The analysis was brought to a stop by Highsmith, after which she ended her relationship with him.[39]
After ending her engagement to Marc Brandel, she had an affair with
psychoanalyst Kathryn Hamill Cohen, the wife of British publisher Dennis Cohen and founder of
Cresset Press, which later published Strangers on a Train.[40][41]
To help pay for the twice-a-week therapy sessions, Highsmith had taken a sales job during Christmas rush season in the toy section of
Bloomingdale's department store.[39] Ironically, it was during this attempt to "cure" her homosexuality that Highsmith was inspired to write her semi-autobiographical novel The Price of Salt, in which two women meet in a department store and begin a passionate affair.[42][43][b]
Believing that Brandel's disclosure that she was homosexual, along with the publication of The Price of Salt, would hurt her professionally, Highsmith had an unsuccessful affair with
Arthur Koestler in 1950, designed to hide her homosexuality.[48][49]
In early September 1951, she began an affair with
sociologist Ellen Blumenthal Hill, traveling back and forth to Europe to meet with her.[7] When Highsmith and Hill came to New York in early May 1953, their affair ostensibly "in a fragile state", Highsmith began an "impossible" affair with the homosexual German photographer
Rolf Tietgens, who had played a "sporadic, intense, and unconsummated role in her emotional life since 1943."[7] She was reportedly attracted to Tietgens on account of his homosexuality, confiding that she felt with him "as if he is another girl, or a singularly innocent man." Tietgens shot several nude photographs of Highsmith, but only one has survived, torn in half at the waist so that only her upper body is visible.[50][7] She dedicated The Two Faces of January (1964) to Tietgens.
Between 1959 and 1961, Highsmith was in love with author
Marijane Meaker.[51][52] Meaker wrote lesbian stories under the pseudonym "Ann Aldrich" and mystery/suspense fiction as "Vin Packer", and later wrote young adult fiction as "M. E. Kerr."[52] In the late 1980s, after 27 years of separation, Highsmith began corresponding with Meaker again, and one day showed up on Meaker's doorstep, slightly drunk and ranting bitterly. Meaker later said she was horrified at how Highsmith's personality had changed.[c]
Highsmith was attracted to women of privilege who expected their lovers to treat them with veneration.[53] According to Phyllis Nagy, she belonged to a "very particular subset of lesbians" and described her conduct with many women she was interested in as being comparable to a movie "studio boss" who chased starlets. Many of these women, who to some extent belonged to the Carol Aird-type[d] and her social set, remained friendly with Highsmith and confirmed the stories of seduction.[27]
An intensely private person, Highsmith was remarkably open and outspoken about her sexuality.[32][34] She told Meaker: "the only difference between us and heterosexuals is what we do in bed."[54]
Death
Highsmith died on February 4, 1995, at 74, from a combination of
aplastic anemia and
lung cancer at Carita Hospital in
Locarno, Switzerland, near the village where she had lived since 1982. She was cremated at the cemetery in
Bellinzona; a memorial service was conducted in the Chiesa di Tegna in
Tegna,
Ticino, Switzerland; and her ashes were interred in its
columbarium.[55][56][57][58]
She left her
estate, worth an estimated $3 million, and the promise of any future royalties, to the
Yaddo colony, where she spent two months in 1948 writing the draft of Strangers on a Train.[34][e] Highsmith bequeathed her
literary estate to the
Swiss Literary Archives at the
Swiss National Library in Bern, Switzerland.[60] Her Swiss publisher,
Diogenes Verlag, was appointed literary executor of the estate.[61]
Political views
Highsmith described herself as a
social democrat.[56] She believed in American democratic ideals and in "the promise" of U.S. history, but was also highly critical of the reality of the country's 20th-century culture and
foreign policy.[citation needed] Beginning in 1963, she resided exclusively in Europe.[7] She retained her United States citizenship, despite the tax penalties, of which she complained bitterly while living for many years in France and Switzerland.[citation needed]
Highsmith was a resolute
atheist.[62] Although she considered herself a
liberal, and in her school years had gotten along with
black students,[63] in later years she believed that black people were responsible for the welfare crisis in America.[64]: 19 She disliked Koreans because "they ate dogs".[56]
Highsmith supported
Palestinian self-determination.[64] As a member of
Amnesty International, she felt duty-bound to express publicly her opposition to the displacement of Palestinians.[64]: 429 Highsmith prohibited her books from being published in Israel after the election of
Menachem Begin as prime minister in 1977.[64]: 431 She dedicated her 1983 novel People Who Knock on the Door to the Palestinian people:
To the courage of the Palestinian people and their leaders in the struggle to regain a part of their homeland. This book has nothing to do with their problem.
The inscription was dropped from the U.S. edition with permission from her agent but without consent from Highsmith.[64]: 418 Highsmith contributed financially to the Jewish Committee on the Middle East, an organization that represented American Jews who supported Palestinian self-determination.[64]: 430 She wrote in an August 1993 letter to Marijane Meaker: "USA could save 11 million per day if they would cut the dough to Israel. The Jewish vote is 1%."[65]
Although Highsmith was an active supporter of
Palestinian rights, according to Carol screenwriter
Phyllis Nagy, her expression of this "often teetered into outright antisemitism."[66] Highsmith was an avowed
antisemite; she described herself as a "Jew hater" and described
The Holocaust as "the semicaust".[67] When she was living in Switzerland in the 1980s, she used nearly 40 aliases when writing to government bodies and newspapers deploring the state of
Israel and the "influence" of the Jews.[68]
Writing history
Comic books
After graduating from
Barnard College, before her short stories started appearing in print, Highsmith wrote for comic book publishers from 1942 and 1948, while she lived in New York City and Mexico. Answering an ad for "reporter/rewrite", she landed a job working for comic book publisher
Ned Pines in a "bullpen" with four artists and three other writers. Initially scripting two comic-book stories a day for $55-a-week paychecks, Highsmith soon realized she could make more money by
freelance writing for comics, a situation which enabled her to find time to work on her own short stories and live for a period in Mexico. The comic book scriptwriter job was the only long-term job Highsmith ever held.[7]
When Highsmith wrote the psychological thriller novel The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), one of the title character's first victims is a comic-book artist named Reddington: "Tom had a hunch about Reddington. He was a comic-book artist. He probably didn't know whether he was coming or going."[71]
How was it possible to be afraid and in love, Therese thought. The two things did not go together. How was it possible to be afraid, when the two of them grew stronger together every day? And every night. Every night was different, and every morning. Together they possessed a miracle.
Highsmith's second novel, The Price of Salt, was published in 1952 under the
pen nameClaire Morgan.[72] Highsmith mined her personal life for the novel's content.[45] Its groundbreaking happy ending[5][f] and departure from stereotypical conceptions about lesbians made it stand out in
lesbian fiction.[73] In what
BBC 2's The Late Show presenter
Sarah Dunant described as a "literary coming out" after 38 years of disaffirmation,[74] Highsmith finally acknowledged authorship of the novel publicly when she agreed to the 1990 publication by
Bloomsbury retitled Carol. Highsmith wrote in the "Afterword" to the new edition:
If I were to write a novel about a lesbian relationship, would I then be labelled a lesbian-book writer? That was a possibility, even though I might never be inspired to write another such book in my life. So I decided to offer the book under another name.
The appeal of The Price of Salt was that it had a happy ending for its two main characters, or at least they were going to try to have a future together. Prior to this book, homosexuals male and female in American novels had had to pay for their deviation by cutting their wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to heterosexuality (so it was stated), or by collapsing – alone and miserable and shunned – into a depression equal to hell.[75]
The paperback version of the novel sold nearly one million copies before its 1990 reissue as Carol.[76]The Price of Salt is distinct for also being the only one of Highsmith's novels in which no violent crime takes place,[47] and where her characters have "more explicit sexual existences" and are allowed "to find happiness in their relationship."[2]
Her last novel, Small g: a Summer Idyll, was rejected by
Knopf (her usual publisher by then) several months before her death,[77] leaving Highsmith without an American publisher.[61] It was published posthumously in the United Kingdom by
Bloomsbury Publishing in March 1995,[78] and nine years later in the United States by
W. W. Norton.[79]
The "suave, agreeable and utterly amoral" Ripley is Highsmith's most famous character, and has been critically acclaimed for being "both a likable character and a cold-blooded killer."[80] He has typically been regarded as "cultivated", a "dapper
sociopath", and an "agreeable and urbane
psychopath."[81]
Sam Jordison of The Guardian wrote, "It is near impossible, I would say, not to root for Tom Ripley. Not to like him. Not, on some level, to want him to win. Patricia Highsmith does a fine job of ensuring he wheedles his way into our sympathies."[82] Film critic
Roger Ebert made a similar appraisal of the character in his review of Purple Noon,
René Clément's 1960 film adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley: "Ripley is a criminal of intelligence and cunning who gets away with murder. He's charming and literate, and a monster. It's insidious, the way Highsmith seduces us into identifying with him and sharing his selfishness; Ripley believes that getting his own way is worth whatever price anyone else might have to pay. We all have a little of that in us."[83] Novelist
Sarah Waters esteemed The Talented Mr. Ripley as the "one book I wish I'd written."[84]
According to biographer Joan Schenkar, Highsmith only once gave a direct response to a question about the definition of a murderer. On the British late-night television discussion programme After Dark she said: "Frankly...I'd call them sick if they were murderers, mentally sick".[85]
The first three books of the "Ripley" series have been adapted into films
five times. In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter announced that a group of production companies were planning a television series based on the novels.[86][87]Ripley ultimately premiered on
Netflix in 2024.[88][89]
1986: The Two Faces of January was adapted as German language film Die zwei Gesichter des Januars, directed by Wolfgang Storch starring Charles Brauer as Chester McFarland, Yolanda Jilot as Colette McFarland and Thomas Schücke as Rydal Keener.
1989: A Suspension of Mercy (aka The Story Teller) was adapted as German language film Der Geschichtenerzähler, directed by Rainer Boldt starring Udo Schenk as Nico Thomkins and Anke Sevenich as Helen Thomkins.
2014: A Mighty Nice Man was adapted as a short film, directed by Jonathan Dee starring Kylie McVey as Charlotte, Jacqueline Baum as Emilie,
Kristen Connolly as Charlotte's Mother, and
Billy Magnussen as Robbie.
1960: The Talented Mr. Ripley was adapted as French language film Plein soleil (titled Purple Noon for English-language audiences, though it translates as "Full Sun" [99]). Directed by
René Clément starring
Alain Delon as Tom Ripley,
Maurice Ronet as Philippe Greenleaf, and
Marie Laforêt as Marge Duval. Both Highsmith and film critic
Roger Ebert criticized the screenplay for altering the ending to prevent Ripley from going unpunished as he does in the novel.[3][83]
1977: Ripley's Game (third novel) and a "plot fragment" of Ripley Under Ground (second novel) were adapted as German language film Der Amerikanische Freund (The American Friend). Directed by
Wim Wenders with
Dennis Hopper as Ripley. Highsmith initially disliked the film but later found it stylish, although she did not like how Ripley was interpreted.[100]
2002: Ripley's Game was adapted as a film
of same name for an English language Italian production. Directed by
Liliana Cavani with
John Malkovich as Ripley,
Chiara Caselli as Luisa Harari Ripley,
Ray Winstone as Reeves Minot,
Dougray Scott as Jonathan Trevanny, and
Lena Headey as Sarah Trevanny. Although not all reviews were favorable, Roger Ebert regarded it as the best of all the Ripley films.[101]
2024: Ripley is an American television series originally ordered by
Showtime in 2019, with
Steven Zaillian directing, and
Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley.[102] Development of the limited series moved to
Netflix in 2023,[103] and premiered the following year.[88]
1982: Scenes from the Ripley novels were dramatized in the episode A Gift for Murder of The South Bank Show, with
Jonathan Kent portraying Tom Ripley. The episode included an interview with Patricia Highsmith.[104]
1987: The Cry of the Owl was adapted for German television as Der Schrei der Eule, directed by Tom Toelle starring
Matthias Habich as Robert Forster,
Birgit Doll as Johanna Tierolf,
Jacques Breuer as Karl Weick, Fritz Lichtenhahn as Inspektor Lippenholtz, and
Doris Kunstmann as Vicky.
1993: The Tremor of Forgery was adapted as German television film Trip nach Tunis, directed by Peter Goedel starring
David Hunt as Howard Ingham,
Karen Sillas as Ina Pallant and John Seitz as Francis J. Adams.
1995: Little Tales of Misogyny was adapted as Spanish/Catalan television film Petits contes misògins, directed by Pere Sagristà starring Marta Pérez, Carme Pla, Mamen Duch, and Míriam Iscla.
2009: All five books of the "Ripliad" were
dramatized by BBC Radio 4, with
Ian Hart voicing Tom Ripley.[110]
2014: A five-segment dramatization of Carol (aka The Price of Salt) was broadcast by BBC Radio 4, with voice acting by
Miranda Richardson as Carol Aird and
Andrea Deck as Therese Belivet.[111]
2019: A five-episode broadcast of selected short stories (One for the Islands, A Curious Suicide, The Terrors of Basket-Weaving, The Man Who Wrote Books In His Head, The Baby Spoon) by BBC Radio 4.[112]
Ellis, Grace; Templer, Hannah (2022). Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). New York:
Abrams ComicArts.
ISBN978-1419744334.
Ruth Rendell: A "mistress of suspense" contemporary of Highsmith for whom Highsmith acknowledged rarely admitted admiration. Rendell explored characters and themes similar to Highsmith's.[120][121]
Notes
^Highsmith wrote in her "Diary 8" on June 17, 1948: "What is so impossible, is that the male face doesn't attract me, isn't beautiful to me. Though I can imagine a familiarity with a man, which would ... allow us to work and make us happy—and certainly sane ... [t]he question is, whether men alone, their selves, don't get unbearably boring?"[36]
^The character of Carol Aird and much of the plot of The Price of Salt was inspired by Highsmith's former lovers Kathryn Hamill Cohen and Philadelphia socialite Virginia Kent Catherwood,[41][12][44] and her relationships with them.[45][46] Catherwood lost
custody of her daughter in divorce proceedings that involved tape-recorded lesbian trysts in hotel rooms.[47]
^Meaker recalled: "[Patricia] was a wonderful, giving, funny person when I [first] met her. I can always remember her smile and her laughter because that was so much a part of her. But when she came back she was despicable. I couldn't believe her hatred for blacks, for Jews in particular, but even for gay people. She hated everybody."[52]
^"Carol Aird" is the upper-class, married woman going through a difficult divorce in Highsmith's novel The Price of Salt.
^During her lifetime, Highsmith supported Yaddo with contributions she preferred to keep anonymous. One of these gifts created an endowed fund to underwrite an annual residency for a young creative artist working in any medium. At her request the residency is now known as the "Patricia Highsmith-Plangman Residency".[59]
^Marijane Meaker (who wrote
lesbian pulp fiction novels under the pseudonyms of "Ann Aldrich" and "Vin Packer") stated in her memoir: "[The Price of Salt] was for many years the only lesbian novel, in either hard or soft cover, with a happy ending."[5]
^Schenkar, Joan (2009).
"Alter Ego: Part 1". The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). St. Martin's Press. p.
130.
ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
^Schenkar, Joan (2009). "La Mamma: Part 3". The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). St. Martin's Press.
ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
^Schenkar, Joan (2009). "Social Studies: Part 1". The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). St. Martin's Press.
ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
^Schenkar, Joan (2009). "Alter Ego: Part 3". The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). St. Martin's Press.
ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
^Schenkar, Joan (2009).
"Les Girls". The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). St. Martin's Press. pp.
267–435.
ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
^
abSchenkar, Joan (2009).
"Social Studies Part 2". The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). St. Martin's Press. p.
257.
ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
^Meaker, Marijane (2003).
"Four". Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s (1st ed.). Cleis Press. p.
25.
ISBN1-57344-171-6.
^
abcSchenkar, Joan (2009). "Social Studies Part 2". The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). St. Martin's Press.
ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
^Schenkar, Joan (2009).
"Les Girls: Part 2". The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). St. Martin's Press. pp.
287–289.
ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
^Schenkar, Joan (2009).
"Les Girls: Part 2". The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). St. Martin's Press. p.
293.
ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
^Gerratana, Mimmo (August 11, 2013).
"Foto come ukiyo-e: immagini del mondo fluttuante" [Photo as ukiyo-e: images of the floating world]. I sensi della letteratura (in Italian). Archived from
the original on August 8, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
^Raskin, Jonah (2009).
"The Talented Patricia Highsmith". web.sonoma.edu. Archived from
the original on October 13, 2018. Retrieved October 13, 2018. (The article was published originally in The Redwood Coast Review.)
^Highsmith, Patricia (2008). The Talented Mr. Ripley. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 19–20.
ISBN978-0-393-33214-8. Originally published by Coward-McCann, Inc., New York, 1955, LCCN 55010083.
Bradford, Richard (2021). Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith (1st ed.). London, England:
Bloomsbury Caravel.
ISBN978-1448217908.