Virago Reading Project 2024 - March

This is the thread for our March author Patricia Highsmith, a writer well known for her thrillers, most notably Strangers on a Train

By my count she also had 20 books published by Virago. Her work is highly regarded and her novel The Price of Salt (originally published under a pseudonym), filmed as Carol, was a recent success.

Here is a list of her Virago titles:

Strangers on a Train
The Talented Mr Ripley
Ripley Underground
The Boy Who Followed Ripley
Ripley Underwater
Deep Water
The Tremor of Forgery
A Suspension of Mercy
Those Who Walk Away
The Glass Cell
Little Tales of Misogyny
The Blunderer
Edith's Diary
Small G
Found in the Street
A Dog's Ransom
A Game for the Living
This Sweet Sickness
The Two Faces of January
People who Knock on the Door

So please do leave any comments on your reading of Patricia Highsmith during March, and we'll look forward to hearing from you!

I've never read any of Highsmith's crime fiction, only The Price of Salt. It seems a good time to start and I assume The Talented Mr Ripley will be a good place to start

I looked through my books and found that I didn't have any by Highsmith at all, VMC edition or otherwise! The horror! I picked up a copy of The Talented Mr. Ripley, which is also on the 1001 book list and look forward to reading it.

I have Those who walk away still to read of the print Highsmiths that I own, and on kindle I have The cry of the owl and Strangers on a train. I only started reading her books a couple of years ago but now I'm a big fan!

I've finished Those who walk away and I liked it a lot. Ray's wife commited suicide after just a year of marriage, and he is trying to understand why she might have done it. His father-in-law is sure that Ray was to blame, and is determined to exact revenge. What begins with an attempted shooting in Rome becomes a game of cat and mouse in Venice. The sense of place is superb, as is the depiction of Americans' and Venetians' relationships to the city. There are also some surprisingly (for Highsmith) warm portrayals of friendships that develop between Ray and some of the city's working class citizens. There is perhaps not the same level of tension as in some of her better-known books but I certainly enjoyed this one.

I've previously read The Highsmith Reader (includes Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt, and some stories) along with (on Kindle) A Suspension of Mercy. I've got several other Highsmiths around (including the omnibus boxed set of The Complete Ripley Novels)....

....but the easiest (unfortunately, as it turns out) for me to put my hands on was People Who Knock on the Door 2**. This satire of Reagan-era evangelicals (it was written in 1983) is a disaster – plot and characters so stereotyped that the story becomes completely predictable until toward the end when the younger son, a juvenile, murders his father. Worse yet, the police "investigation" of the murder is so cursory as to be unrealistic and the "juvenile home" sentence imposed is so short as to indicate that Highsmith, who by that time had been living outside the U.S. for twenty years, simply didn't have a good feel of America.

I'm going to try to get to my omnibus set of Ripley sometime later this year; but when I do, I want to have time to read the entire five-volume set, so I'm going to leave this month's Virago Reading Project with the single reading of People Who Knock on the Door because I do have a good bit of non-Virago reading to get accomplished right now.

If I still have some time later this month and can locate it among my boxed books, I may give Small g a try.

ETA: Incidentally, Highsmith's inclusion of Jim "The People's Temple" Jones among her collection of cultish ministers seems to suggest that Jones was a right-wing evangelical. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jones in fact had been a very progressive pastor in the Disciples of Christ who was constantly coming under fire from conservative in the denomination but who eventually went around the bend, apparently from drug (cocaine?) abuse.

I've just started The cry of the owl, a portrayal of jealousy in small-town Pennsylvania.

I've just started Small g.

Finished The cry of the owl which was gripping and disturbing. It would put one off ever living in a small town.

>9 Sakerfalcon: Yikes!!!! 😮😮 Perhaps that's why I've been a bit wary of reading Highsmith....

>10 kaggsy: Nasty, suspicious, small-minded neighbours!

I just finished Small g: A Summer Idyll 4****. Not sure this one deserves 5***** – but I was almost tempted to give it at least 4½****. The characters aren't all that attractive and the ending isn't particularly dramatic, but something about it strikes my fancy. Its depiction of semi-queer Zurich (that's why it's g in lower case, not capitalized) somehow reminds me of the San Francisco of Armistead Maupin. In any case, definitely way better than People Who Knock on the Door.

I have some other Highsmiths in TBR and I'm thinking I might do Nothing That Meets the Eye, the posthumous edition of "uncollected" stories. I've also got the five-volume boxed set of Ripley; but I'll never get through it this month and, once I get started, I think I may want to binge all the way through. May just hold off for now and clean up some incomplete "current reads" before month's end.

It's been quite several years now, but I have already read The Highsmith Reader | Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt, Stories. I also read A Suspension of Mercy some years ago on Kindle.

>11 Sakerfalcon: 😮😮😮😮😮

I got a late start on The Talented Mr. Ripley, but I'm enjoying it so far!

I read the first two Ripleys in March. The first one had me gripped and I loved the way Highsmith takes us into Ripley's mind and how we follow him through every step of his warped journey. Maybe it was a mistake to follow up with the second straight away, but I was less engaged second time around with a Ripley who is more settled now in his life as a successful conman and occasional murderer. I was still impressed with Highsmith's writing though and will be picking up her work again.

I just finished the first Ripley today. I agree Dee about how Highsmith brought us along in Tom's mind. Right from the beginning I thought he was mentally ill, and how his Aunt Dottie treated him, ugh! Very interesting book and so glad I finally got to it!

I read The Talented Mr Ripley and enjoyed, although Tom was an evil character I found myself urging him not to get caught. I love a writer that can make you root for an evil person, knowing all the time that you shouldn't.