40 Facts About Patricia Highsmith

1.

Patricia Highsmith 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.

2.

Patricia Highsmith 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.

3.

Patricia Highsmith's writing derived influence from existentialist literature, and questioned notions of identity and popular morality.

4.

Patricia Highsmith was dubbed "the poet of apprehension" by novelist Graham Greene.

5.

Patricia Highsmith was the only child of artists Jay Bernard Plangman, who was of German descent, and Mary Plangman.

6.

When she was 12 years old, Patricia Highsmith was sent to Fort Worth and lived with her maternal grandmother for a year.

7.

Patricia Highsmith called this the "saddest year" of her life and felt "abandoned" by her mother.

8.

Patricia Highsmith returned to New York to continue living with her mother and stepfather, primarily in Manhattan, but in Astoria, Queens.

9.

Patricia Highsmith's mother predeceased her by only four years, dying at the age of 95.

10.

Patricia Highsmith's grandmother taught her to read at an early age, and she made good use of her grandmother's extensive library.

11.

In 1942, Patricia Highsmith graduated from Barnard College, where she studied English composition, playwriting, and short story prose.

12.

Patricia Highsmith endured cycles of depression, some of them deep, throughout her life.

13.

Patricia Highsmith 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.

14.

Patricia Highsmith loved cats, and she bred about three hundred snails in her garden at home in Suffolk, England.

15.

Patricia Highsmith loved woodworking tools and made several pieces of furniture.

16.

In 1943, Patricia 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.

17.

Patricia Highsmith convinced her to visit him in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he introduced her to Ann Smith, a painter and designer with a previous metier as a Vogue fashion model, and the two became involved.

18.

Patricia 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.

19.

Ironically, it was during this attempt to "cure" her homosexuality that Patricia 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.

20.

Between 1959 and 1961, Patricia Highsmith was in love with author Marijane Meaker.

21.

Meaker later said she was horrified at how Patricia Highsmith's personality had changed.

22.

Patricia Highsmith was attracted to women of privilege who expected their lovers to treat them with veneration.

23.

Many of these women, who to some extent belonged to the 'Carol Aird'-type and her social set, remained friendly with Patricia Highsmith and confirmed the stories of seduction.

24.

Patricia 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.

25.

Patricia Highsmith 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.

26.

Patricia Highsmith 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.

27.

Patricia Highsmith bequeathed her literary estate to the Swiss Literary Archives at the Swiss National Library in Bern, Switzerland.

28.

Patricia Highsmith was an avowed antisemite; she described herself as a "Jew hater" and described The Holocaust as "the semicaust".

29.

Patricia Highsmith believed in American democratic ideals and in "the promise" of US history, but was highly critical of the reality of the country's 20th-century culture and foreign policy.

30.

Patricia Highsmith retained her United States citizenship, despite the tax penalties, of which she complained bitterly while living for many years in France and Switzerland.

31.

Patricia Highsmith aligned herself with writers such as Gore Vidal, Alexander Cockburn, Noam Chomsky and Edward Said in supporting Palestinian self-determination.

32.

Patricia Highsmith prohibited her books from being published in Israel after the election of Menachem Begin as prime minister in 1977.

33.

Patricia Highsmith dedicated her 1983 novel People Who Knock on the Door to the Palestinian people:.

34.

Patricia Highsmith contributed financially to the Jewish Committee on the Middle East, an organization that represented American Jews who supported Palestinian self-determination.

35.

Patricia Highsmith wrote for True Comics, Captain Midnight, and Western Comics.

36.

In what BBC 2's The Late Show presenter Sarah Dunant described as a "literary coming out" after 38 years of disaffirmation, Patricia Highsmith finally acknowledged authorship of the novel publicly when she agreed to the 1990 publication by Bloomsbury retitled Carol.

37.

In 1955, Patricia Highsmith wrote The Talented Mr Ripley, a novel about Tom Ripley, a charming criminal who murders a rich man and steals his identity.

38.

Patricia Highsmith wrote four sequels: Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water, about Ripley's exploits as a con artist and serial killer who always gets away with his crimes.

39.

Several of Patricia Highsmith's works have been adapted for other media, some more than once.

40.

In 1978, Patricia Highsmith was president of the jury at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival.