This essay is part of T’s Book Club, a series of articles and events dedicated to classic works of American literature. Click here to R.S.V.P.
to a virtual conversation about “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” to be led by Edmund White and held on April 22. Patricia Highsmith was Tom Ripley without the charm.
She was unhappy if an affair was going well, and stirred up trouble with her multiple women lovers — she could only write in a state of high tension.
She collected snails and loved observing them, liked their passionless, unconscious way of breeding, thought the French were practically cannibals for eating them.