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The first and highly anticipated biography of the author of such classics of suspense as Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
The life of Patricia Highsmith was as secretive and unusual as that of many of the best-known characters who people her "peerlessly disturbing" writing. Yet even as her work - her thrillers, short stories, and the pseudonymous lesbian novel The Price of Salt - have found new popularity in the last few years, the life of this famously elusive writer has remained a mystery.
For Beautiful Shadow, the first biography of Highsmith, journalist Andrew Wilson mined the vast archive of diaries, notebooks, and letters that Patricia Highsmith left behind, astonishing in their candor and detail. He interviewed her closest friends and colleagues as well as some of her many lovers. But Wilson also traces Highsmith's literary roots in the work of Poe, noir, and existentialism, locating the influences that helped distinguish Highsmith's writing so startlingly from more ordinary thrillers.
The result is both a serious critical biography and one that reveals much about a brilliant and contradictory woman, one who despite her acclaim and affairs always maintained her solitude.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
American Authors, Authorship, Biography, Lesbians, Suspense fiction, LGBTQ biography and memoir, Stonewall Book Awards, Lambda Literary Awards, Lambda Literary Award Winner, collection:judy_grahn_award=finalist, American Women novelists, American Novelists, Authors, biography, Authors, americanPeople
Patricia Highsmith (1921-)Places
United StatesTimes
20th centuryShowing 7 featured editions. View all 7 editions?
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1
Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith
2010, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Bloomsbury Publishing, Bloomsbury Paperbacks
in English
1408811197 9781408811191
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2
Beautiful Shadow
May 3, 2004, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Paperback
- New Ed edition
0747568553 9780747568551
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4
Schöner Schatten: Das Leben von Patricia Highsmith
2003, Berlin Verlag
Hardcover
3827005175 9783827005175
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5
Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith
July 15, 2003, Bloomsbury USA
Hardcover
in English
- 1 edition
1582341982 9781582341989
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BEAUTIFUL SHADOW: A LIFE OF PATRICIA HIGHSMITH.
2003, BLOOMSBURY
in Undetermined
0747563144 9780747563143
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Book Details
First Sentence
"In one of Highsmith's early notebooks there is a short vignette about a boy who wonders why he is happy at one moment and sad the next."
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- Created April 29, 2008
- 8 revisions
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July 17, 2023 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
August 6, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |