Salt Lake Tribune (05/Feb/1995) - Crime writer Patricia Highsmith dies at 74
Details
- article: Crime writer Patricia Highsmith dies at 74
- newspaper: Salt Lake Tribune (05/Feb/1995)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train (1951)
Article
Crime writer Patricia Highsmith dies at 74
Patricia Highsmith, the American crime writer who wove dark, psychological tales of murder and intrigue, died Saturday. She was 74.
Highsmith died at Carita hospital in Locarno, said a hospital official in the southern Swiss town. No cause of death was given.
Highsmith published 20 novels and seven short-story collections. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, appeared in 1950 after being rejected by six publishers. It was made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.
She was best known for creating Tom Ripley, a charming gentleman-murderer who was also her favorite character and starred in five of her novels.
He first appeared in The Talented Mr. Ripley, a likable young American without any conscience who murdered a friend in Italy and impersonated him. The book received the prestigious Mystery Writers of America scroll in 1957.
Like many of her principal characters, Ripley escaped justice.
"I rather like criminals and find them extremely interesting, unless they are monotonously and stupidly brutal," she once said.
Highsmith's stories were published in 20 languages, and were perhaps more popular in Europe than her native America.
One of her favorite plots was to examine torturous relations between two very different men, although in 1952 she wrote under a pseudonym The Price of Salt, a story of lesbian love.
Patricia Highsmith wrote her first novel, "Strangers on a Train," in 1950.
