RARA-AVIS: Patricia Highsmith biography

From: Mario Taboada ( matrxtech@yahoo.com)
Date: 05 Aug 2003


Last Sunday's Washington Post Book World contains a review by Alice Turner of _Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith_ by Andrew Wilson. The review is probably still online.

According to the reviewer, this is a dispassionate biography that doesn't try to glorify its subject. Here is Otto Penzler on Patricia, as quoted in the book:

"There was an unredeemable ugliness to her. I never witnessed a kind thought, a kind word, a kind gesture in all the time we spent together."

And:

"She was a totally horrible woman. She was mean, unkind, unfriendly and cold, and never missed an opportunity to be nasty."

I thought you would like to know. I'm going to get the library to buy it. Nasty or yes, Highsmith was one of the essential writers of dark suspense.

Best,

MrT

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