This book was recommended to me by someone I consider extremely intelligent, or I probably wouldn’t have even been interested. I’d heard of Patricia Highsmith, primarily as the author of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN; secondarily as a “Famous Lesbian.” But there was a lot more to her than that. She was born in 1921 to a recently divorced young couple in Fort Worth, Texas. Her mother then married a fellow freelance illustrator, Stanley Highsmith, who later officially adopted her and gave her his name. Although they relocated to New York when she was six years old, “Pat” still spent time with her grandmother in Fort Worth. She was a gifted child, a voracious reader who could also play the piano and paint. And somewhere along the line she realized that she was a lesbian. These diaries are extremely personal and begin when she’s at Barnard College, where she seems to have been having an active sex life with other girls, despite living with her parents. After looking for jobs in journalism, she ended up writing scripts for comic books, which turns out to have been profitable on many levels. She made great contacts, both social and professional. But her sights were set on being a successful writer of literature. It’s her ambition that made her interesting to me. At that time, there were lots of “career women” in publishing who were gay, despite some of them being married to men. Pat herself was at one time briefly engaged to a nice young man who adored her. But she was constantly falling in love with other women, sometimes several at the same time. She desperately wanted to have a marital kind of relationship with another woman. But it was hard to find another woman who could handle her ambition (and her success), and who also had the ability to provide an environment enabling her to maintain her success. There were several destructive relationships. It’s all really interesting. She also had pet snails, which she transferred across international borders hidden in her bra. She was a world traveler and spent her latter years in Europe. She knew everybody everywhere (Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connor, Somerset Maugham, to name a few). She was also an alcoholic and a heavy-smoker. It’s amazing to me that she lived as long as she did.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, despite its enormous length. The hardbound edition has a thousand pages, which provoked me to get the kindle edition. I started it on May 30th and finished it on July 13th. I read for about an hour a day. It’s hard to make a commitment to read a thousand-page book, but fortunately I never got tired of this one. But I do enjoy diaries. THE DIARY OF ANAIS NIN is a great favorite of mine. They share much in common, especially the lesbianism. However, Nin’s is rather erotic, and Highsmith’s is not-at-all. The two women writers had very different sensibilities, but they were both great diarists.
Scarica l'app Kindle gratuita e inizia a leggere immediatamente i libri Kindle sul tuo smartphone, tablet o computer, senza bisogno di un dispositivo Kindle.
Leggi immediatamente sul browser con Kindle per il Web.
Con la fotocamera del cellulare scansiona il codice di seguito e scarica l'app Kindle.
Segui l'autore
Si è verificato un errore. Riprova a effettuare la richiesta più tardi.
Spesso comprati insieme
38,68€
Ricevilo il prima possibile il giovedì 2 maggio
Disponibilità immediata
Prezzo totale:
Per visualizzare il nostro prezzo, aggiungi gli articoli al carrello.
Scegli gli articoli da acquistare insieme.
Chi ha acquistato questo articolo ha acquistato anche
Pagina 1 di 1 RicominciaPagina 1 di 1
Informazioni sull'autore
Segui gli autori per ottenere aggiornamenti sulle nuove uscite, oltre a consigli avanzati.
Le recensioni migliori da altri paesi
MichGold
Eine unglaubliche Autorin mit einem unglaublichen Leben
Recensito in Germania il 2 marzo 2023
Jack Buckley
The sad truth about the hugely talented life of Tom Ripley's inventor
Recensito nel Regno Unito il 14 dicembre 2021
EJP
truly a life in full: Patricia Highsmith
Recensito negli Stati Uniti il 18 gennaio 2022