Mario reported as follows
> 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."
>
Well I only met Patricia Highsmith once (to interview her in
1988) but I would liek to completely refute this view of
Highsmith. I found her odd and socially awkward, but funny
and likeable. As for the kind gesture. I got my publisher to
send her galleys of my first book and she came back promptly
with a very nice blurb. Might it perhaps be the case that
Highsmith was one of that not inconsiderable number of
writers who have found Mr Penzler's own charm hard to
detect?
John
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