INTERVIEW: ANDREW WILSON

Interview

ANDREW WILSON

Gustav Temple meets Patricia Highsmith’s first biographer, to discuss the enduring appeal of the grande dame of crime fiction in the centenary of her birth

his year, the centenary of Patricia

THighsmith’s birth on 19th January, sees the release of the new series of the Ripley stories with Andrew Scott in the lead role. Yes, and there’s also a new film with Ben Affleck of Deep Water.

That’s the book about Vic and his terrible unfaithful wife? Yes, and the swimming pool, the obsession with snails – it’s classic Highsmith!

Today is Thanksgiving Day, which is appropriate for discussing Texan writer Patricia Highsmith. How patriotic was she, despite living in Europe for much of her life?

“She’d been working from the tradition of existentialist literature; she knew her Camus, her Sartre and her Kafka. But what she did so cleverly was take those very intellectual ideas and turn them into these extraordinarily suspenseful stories with very tight plots. And I think that’s one of the aspects of her genius”

I don’t think she was, actually. She was very cynical about America and she felt betrayed by America in lots of ways. Obviously she was in self-exile in Switzerland. Her books were never that successful in America during her life, and towards the end of her life she didn’t even have a US publisher. She thought that America had had its day and it was falling apart, ruled by a consumerism that was bad for the soul. She always felt that European culture was more sophisticated and more attuned to nuance in terms of the human personality, which is one of the reasons she moved to Europe. She had grown up reading English and European literature and felt attuned to the existentialists.

With Highsmith, she was also always driven by affairs of the heart. She was a romantic, always looking for the next big love of her life, even if that love happened to be a married woman. That’s why

“She had the sense of being born under a sickly star. While other girls of her age were reading Little Women, she was reading Karl Menninger’s The Human Mind, the textbook of psychiatric deviant behaviour. All the elements of her childhood would either make somebody mad or a great writer. Luckily Highsmith fell into the second category”

she came to England in the 1960s, to suffer because she’d fallen in love with a married woman. Even though she knew the relationship was destined for failure, being a romantic she was somewhat foolhardy. So that sealed her fate in her transition from America to Europe.

You published Beautiful Shadow in 2003, eight years after the death of Highsmith. When did the process begin? She died in 1995 and I started writing it in 1998. I had become interested because someone had given me a copy of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I was completely blown away by it. Then I read more of her books and became intrigued by her. I noticed that in all the interviews with her I could find, she never said anything of any note; she was kind of hiding in plain sight. I thought it was very interesting the contrast between how little she would give away and then these incredibly dark books, seeping with evil and psychopathy, exploring the dark heart of humanity and issues of morality and guilt.

To write the synopsis I went to Switzerland to see her archive and discovered I was the first person to see it outside the curatorial staff. There were dozens and dozens of private diaries and journals, detailing her sex life, her relationships, the inspiration for her books. It was an incredible treasure trove. I also discovered lots of letters from really high profile biographers, but they had applied too soon after her death and the curators were still sorting through all the material. It took them over three years just to get these documents in some kind of order. So I came along at just the right time.

Is Highsmith still generally regarded as a crime or suspense writer, or has she managed to shake that off and be regarded as a writer of literary fiction? I think our view of suspense and crime fiction has changed considerably since when she was writing. In her time there was this snobbish view of crime fiction, but thankfully that has changed. Denise Mina, a crime novelist, has been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Awards. I think if Highsmith was writing today her books would be considered for the major prizes. She was really angry at being dismissed as a crime writer. She’d been working from the tradition of existentialist literature; she knew her Camus, her Sartre and her Kafka. But what she did so cleverly was take those very intellectual ideas and turn them into these extraordinarily suspenseful stories with very tight plots. And I think that’s one of the aspects of her genius.

Is there something addictive and compulsive about reading Highsmith? I found that at times I couldn’t read anyone else, but then suddenly got overwhelmed with her darkness and had to take a break. Which ones stand out for you in the canon? Some are much better than others. The one still considered to be quite weak is A Game For the Living, which is not one of my favourites. There’s a question mark over her final novel, Small g, a Summer Idyll, published posthumously, which some people think should never have been published. I think it’s rather quaint and charming in its own way.

While I was reading Small g, a Summer Idyll, I wondered whether she it was really about Ellen Hill, one of Highsmith’s lovers whom you wrote a lot about in your book. Yes, that’s interesting. Ellen Hill was such an important but toxic figure in Patricia’s life. Lots of people accuse Highsmith of being misogynistic, but the way that Ellen treated her was so heinous and controlling. Yet when she tried to commit suicide, Patricia just left her at her bedside and went partying. That could almost be seen to be a kind of murder. She saw her swallow the pills and then left her to die. She was quite shocked when she returned to Manhattan and found Ellen still alive. And she ended up using that very scene in her novel The Blunderer (1954). It’s a quite unpleasant read of themes of evil and guilt. The idea of people rehearsing the notion of murder in their heads, and whether that’s as bad as the real thing, which comes from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Rehearsing this fantasy is such a dominating theme of Highsmith’s fiction.

In your book you quote a friend of Highsmith’s as saying that if she hadn’t

It isn’t a good idea simply to pluck one of Highsmith’s books at random, as one might with Agatha Christie or PG Wodehouse, and expect it to be typical. Some guidance is required, and Gustav Temple offers the suggested reading list for Patricia Highsmith.

1. The Talented Mr. Ripley We’ve all seen Messrs Law and Damon frolicking around in

Italy with Miss Paltrow in Anthony Minghella’s excellent adaptation, but the book itself is still the best Highsmith to start with. There is a reason for it being the most adapted of her novels, and that is the main character of Tom Ripley, about whom she went on to pen four further novels, all of which are superb. But you have to start with Talented…, because it is in this tale that Ripley’s true character is formed, and in which his talents for mimicry and forgery, not to mention his fearless chutzpah, are all developed when given the opportunity. Highsmith herself so identified with the murderous sociopath that she often signed photographs with his name rather than her own.

2. Strangers on a Train Highsmith’s cri de coeur, and an extremely accomplished work for a first novel, setting out all the themes she would return to again and again in her fiction: the seemingly perfect crime – two strangers agree to swap murders – gradually falling apart when one of the murders goes wrong, and one of the murderers turns out to be far more mentally unstable than the other; the notion of everyone having their ‘shadow’ following them around, an amoral version of themselves who can lead them into darker territory if allowed; the battle of conscience between convincing oneself that a terrible act is justifiable and the sense of guilt that gradually arrives afterwards.

3. This Sweet Sickness A great one to start with if you prefer your mind not to be cluttered with cinematic images. It isn’t surprising that it was only ever made into a forgotten French adaptation with Gerard Depardieu, as the protagonist lacks the panache and appeal of Ripley. He lives a double life, one in a seedy boarding house in a small town, the other in a lavish country house that he is preparing for the arrival of the love of his life – who knows nothing of this. In fact, she is happily engaged to another fellow and does not take kindly to his gradually more obsessive overtures. In today’s society he would have a restraining order slapped on him immediately, but in 1950s America the word ‘stalker’ wasn’t in common currency. When prying eyes start to peer at his double life, the body count starts to pile up, while he clings on to his fantasy as if nothing can stand in its way.

4. The Tremor of Forgery Set in Tunisia, this is the only of her novels in which

Highsmith lays bare her frankly ‘difficult’ political views. But the main event of the story is described with typical sangfroid, and is an excellent example of Highsmith’s ability to make her characters stumble into the most awful life decisions and make it seem as though they have no choice but to turn an initially comfortable setup into a complete mess. It is also a good example of her talent for creating minor characters who are as convincing as the protagonists, and showing that some casual friendships are actually a seething cauldron of resentment and hatred never truly expressed.

5. Deep Water Vic is unhappily married to Melinda, who carries on with a string of other chaps right under his nose, while Vic takes solace in his living collection of snails. So far, so Highsmith (she was an avid snail-fancier herself). Classic Highsmith often portrays domestic hell in seemingly stable suburbia, as if it were ridiculous for any married couple to be happy together. Vic graduates from snide remarks from the sofa, behind his perpetual G&T, to rather nastier solutions to his wife’s infidelity.

There is a film adaptation coming soon from Hollywood, though it will be interesting to see how such an unpalatable portrait of Middle America is rendered.

written her books, she would probably have committed a murder. Her notebooks are full of fantasies and dreams of killing people, much more than what you’d expect any other crime novelist to write down. They’re not those kinds of plot-driven notes at all. These seem to come from a deep, almost psychopathic point of view. I do subscribe to the view that if she hadn’t written books, she would either have committed a crime or become mentally ill. So I think her books saved her, providing an outlet for this dark imagination.

Do you think it all started with her mother, with whom she had quite a strained relationship? Her mother telling Patricia that she’d tried to abort her by drinking turpentine wasn’t a very good start. Then when she finally met her real father, Bernard,

“Minghella changed the ending of his film, to give Ripley some kind of conscience. We see him weeping inside that cabin on the ship, whereas at the end of the first Ripley book, Tom Ripley is jubilant that he’s got away with murder, as is the reader! It will be really interesting to see whether the new production embraces the amorality of Ripley”

when she was 17, there was some kind of suggestive groping and he showed her pornographic pictures. Before that she’d written down countless murderous fantasies about her stepfather Stanley. All of this caused a sense of dissociation in her from very early on. She saw herself from the outside, which is obviously a sign of something being very wrong. She had the sense of being born under a sickly star. While other girls of her age were reading Little Women, she was reading Karl Menninger’s The Human Mind, the textbook of psychiatric deviant behaviour. All the elements of her childhood would either make somebody mad or a great writer. Luckily Highsmith fell into the second category.

The idea that she explored most fully in her first book, Strangers on a Train, of everyone having a shadow, a darker version of themselves following them around, developed later in the Ripley novels, seems to be part of her appeal to a certain type of reader. What she very cleverly does is intensify the basic human emotions that all of us feel at some point: passion, jealousy and rage, which can sometimes lead to at least the thought of committing murder. You can open any newspaper any day and you’ll see a story of some terrible incident involving these emotions. This is the dark truth about human nature. And it’s not just people who are remote; it’s every one of us who is capable of doing this. Highsmith is very adept at exploring the triggers that could lead to a state of violence. One of the most unsettling aspects of reading her is that she kind of normalises violence. She’s got this way of enveloping the reader in this very dark world yet making it seem incredibly normal. She uses this

very flat prose style, where she’ll describe in detail the cracking of an egg in exactly the same way as she will describe somebody getting their head bashed in.

There is to be a new television adaptation of all the Ripley novels by Showtime, starting with The Talented Mr. Ripley. Why do you think there are so few film productions of any other Highsmith novels? That’s true in the English language, though there have been quite a few European adaptations of her novels. But I think Anthony Minghella’s Ripley completely changed everything. Before that, filmmakers were too nervous of the storylines; in fact Minghella changed the ending of his film, to give Ripley some kind of conscience. We see him weeping inside that cabin on the ship, whereas at the end of the first Ripley book, Tom Ripley is jubilant that he’s got away with murder, as is the reader! It will be really interesting to see whether the new production embraces the amorality of Ripley.

My guess is that they will, particularly because our culture, especially on TV, has changed and there’s an awful lot more dark material. We don’t necessarily need a series to end on a happy note any longer.

Do you think Andrew Scott will make a talented Ripley? I think he will. There is something about him that is associated with the transgressive, and I don’t mean anything to do with his sexuality, but purely in the way he acts and the parts he’s played. I thought his portrayal of Moriarty in Sherlock was terrifying. I saw him on the stage in a Noel Coward play and he is able to be utterly charming one minute and then

terrifyingly dangerous the next, which is a great combination for Ripley.

The challenge will be developing the character. Anyone who’s read all five Ripley novels will know that the Ripley from the first one is so different to that in books 3, 4 and 5. It’s almost like a completely different character, which in some ways is explained by the fact that there are nearly 40 years between publication of the first and the last Ripley novels.

“On the face of it, Highsmith was deeply unlikeable, nasty, mean, cruel and narcissistic,” says Joanna Murray-Smith, the Australian playwright of Switzerland, which premiered in Sydney in 2014, “but I kind of fell in love with her, too.” Did you develop an opinion of Highsmith anything like that while writing Beautiful Shadow? I interviewed so many people and heard how badly she’d behaved to some of them. She was clearly a very difficult personality but I did develop some empathy towards her. I don’t think you want to read 500 pages on a subject that the biographer hates. I found it very interesting to try and find the roots of that bitterness and to try and explain some of that in context. You can’t have these brilliant books written by a sweet old lady in a cottage. When I was at university in the eighties, there was this sense of literary biographies being a no-go area for literary study; there was seen as being no connection between the writer’s life and the text, but hopefully I’ve proved that, at least in Highstmith’s case, there is a strong connection. If she hadn’t had this toxic childhood and these difficult relationships, we wouldn’t have these extraordinary books.

We both expressed a liking for This Sweet Sickness (1960). What is it you like so much about that novel? I think it’s my favourite of them all. It’s the one that encapsulates Highsmith at her most essential; it’s the kind of über-Highsmith read, if you like. It’s got one of her major themes, about people being trapped in their fantasies, and the protagonist’s obsessive fashioning of a completely separate alter ego and an alternative parallel, more sophisticated life for himself, contrasted with the banality of his ordinary day-to-day life. And I think that the stalking of the character of Annabelle that goes to a pathological level would have a huge resonance today. There was a French 1977 production of it with Gerard Depardieu called Tell Her I Love Her.

If someone wanted to start reading the Patricia Highsmith canon from scratch, where would you advise them to begin? Either start with Strangers on a Train or the Talented Mr. Ripley. I think from either of those you’ll get a sense of how you’re going to get on with her as a writer. Some people simply read one of her books then throw it down in disgust. You need a certain kind of sensibility to enjoy them. If you’re looking for some kind of comforting, easy read, then they’re probably not for you. n

Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith is published by Bloomsbury, available as an audio book and still available in print

Five Strangers by Andrew Wilson, under the pseudonym E.V. Adamson, is published by HarperCollins in May