“[Highsmith is] one of our greatest modernist writers."
– Gore Vidal*

Once belittled as a "dime-store Dostoyevsky," Patricia Highsmith is now becoming recognized as a major American literary figure, both inside and out of the gay and lesbian community.

Known mostly as a writer of crime novels and "suspense" fiction, Highsmith had a fascination with deep, psychological motivations and what drives people to commit crimes.

She also wrote many other stories and novels outside of the crime genre, including a controversial novel about abortion (People Who Knock On the Door), several feminist-based works, and three significant works of gay literature (The Price of Salt, Found in the Street, and
Small g: A Summer Idyll).

 

“My suspicion is that when the dust has settled and when the chronicle of 20th-century American literature comes to be written, history will place Highsmith at the top of the pyramid.”

– A.N. Wilson, London Daily Telegraph*

 

 

Page by Lauren Karp, © 2004

*Quotes: W.W. Norton Publicity

Collage: compiled images from W. W. Norton, Amazon Books (German), and personal photography