‘Murder is a kind of making love’: The strange life of Patricia Highsmith, the author behind The Talented Mr Ripley
No one wrote antiheroes like Patricia Highsmith. Take Tom Ripley, the “suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral” conman protagonist of her 1955 thriller The Talented Mr Ripley, who lies, cheats and murders his way around Europe – and somehow makes us root for him while doing so. Almost 70 years since he first appeared on the page, he remains utterly compelling: no wonder Netflix’s TV adaptation, Ripley, which will star Andrew Scott, is one of 2024’s most anticipated releases.
Highsmith’s novels are filled with characters who, like Ripley, would look entirely normal if you passed them in the street, yet are consumed by dark impulses, horrible secrets, and the fear of being found out. Reading them can feel like the literary equivalent of an anxiety attack: not for nothing did Graham Greene, an early admirer, call her “the poet of apprehension”.
And just as her characters could be fascinatingly appalling, Highsmith herself had a (very) dark side – one that went far beyond her fixation with the murky depths of humanity, her alcoholism, and her strange habits, such as carrying snails in her handbag. So who was this strange figure, obsessed with delving into the minds of murderers? And how did she come to
