New Biography, Written from the Author’s Diaries, Tell Fascinating Story of the Complicated Patricia Highsmith

A new biography, to be released later this month, is to delve into the deep and mysterious life of Patricia Highsmith, author of various novels including The Talented Mr Ripley, and Strangers on a Train.

Devils, Lusts And Strange Desires: The Life Of Patricia Highsmith by Professor Richard Bradford will be released on January 21st and gives a keen insight into the loves, life, and inspirations of this talented author. Written from the author’s diaries, the biography looks at the relationship between Highsmith and her novels, including her own idea that Mr Ripley was simply a manifestation of her own darkness.

The book explores her own sexuality, as an openly homosexual woman at a time when this was not a societal norm, and the part that pays in the seminal lesbian love story, Carol, or The Price of Salt. Today she would no doubt be held up as a bastion for LBGT+ values and adored, but her life was overshadowed by her own unkindness and the exploitative nature of the relationships she held with friends and lovers.

From her own self loathing, to her antisemitism, inwardly turned misogyny and abundant darkness of nature, this biography strips back the author to her very inspirations in a sharp and incisive account. As one of her friends stated after her death ‘If she hadn’t had her work, she would have been sent to an insane asylum or an alcoholics’ home. It took a while for me to figure this out, but all those strange characters haunting other people, and thinking and writing about them – they were her. She was her writing.’

Devils, Lusts And Strange Desires: The Life Of Patricia Highsmith by Professor Richard Bradford will be released on 21st January and is available for pre-order now.