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 First edition | |
| Author | Patricia Highsmith |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Set in | Mexico |
| Published | Harper & Brothers (1958) |
| Media type | |
A Game for the Living (1958) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith. It is the sixth of her 22 novels and the only one set in Mexico.
The novel is dedicated to one of Highsmith's college teachers, Ethel Sturtevant, "my friend and teacher", along with Dorothy Hargreaves and Mary McCurdy. [1]
Ramon, a devoutly Catholic furniture repairman in Mexico City meets Theo, a wealthy German atheist expatriate who questions the happiness he had found in his new home: "Theodore thought he was as happy as anyone logically could be in an age when atomic bombs and annihilation hung over everybody's head, though the world 'logically' troubled him in this context. Could one be logically happy?" An unlikely friendship develops, until Lelia, a woman they have both slept with and care for, is found brutally raped, murdered and mutilated. Each suspects the other is responsible, and the police investigate them both as well. They learn that Lelia may have been robbed and track a suspect to Acapulco, but Theo believes he is under surveillance.
Dorothy B. Hughes, a somewhat older author of crime fiction who did not care for Highsmith's writing in general, objected in private to Highsmith's "lack of empathy to the Mexican nationals" in this novel. [2]
Highsmith herself had a negative opinion of her novel, regretting her attempt to write in the mystery genre. She later wrote:
I had tried to do something different from what I had been doing, but this caused me to leave out certain elements that are vital for me: surprise, speed of action, stretching the reader's credulity, and above all the intimacy with the murderer himself. I am not an inventor of puzzles, nor do I like secrets. The result, after rewriting the book four times in a gruelling year of work, was mediocrity. I always say to foreign publishers, and to publishers who contemplate a reprint, "This is my worst book, so please think twice before you buy it." [3]
Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novels and numerous short stories throughout her career spanning nearly five decades, and her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her writing derived influence from existentialist literature, and questioned notions of identity and popular morality. She was dubbed "the poet of apprehension" by novelist Graham Greene.
Ripley's Game (1974) is a psychological thriller by Patricia Highsmith, the third in her series about the con artist and murderer Tom Ripley.
The American Friend is a 1977 neo-noir film written and directed by Wim Wenders, adapted from the 1974 novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. It stars Dennis Hopper as career-criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley coerces into becoming an assassin. The film uses an unusual "natural" language concept: Zimmermann speaks German with his family and his doctor, but English with Ripley and while visiting Paris.
Tom Ripley is a fictional character in the Ripley series of crime novels by American novelist Patricia Highsmith, as well as several film adaptations. He is a career criminal, con artist, and serial killer who always gets away with his crimes. The five novels in which he appears—The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, and Ripley Under Water—were published between 1955 and 1991. In every novel, he comes perilously close to getting caught or killed, but ultimately escapes danger.
Ripley Under Ground is a psychological thriller by Patricia Highsmith, the second novel in her Ripliad series. It was published in June 1970.
This Sweet Sickness (1960) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, about a man who is obsessed with a woman who has rejected his advances. It is a "painful novel about obsessive imaginary love".
The Price of Salt is a 1952 romance novel by Patricia Highsmith, first published under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan." Highsmith—known as a suspense writer based on her psychological thriller Strangers on a Train—used an alias as she did not want to be tagged as "a lesbian-book writer", and she also used her own life references for characters and occurrences in the story.
Deep Water is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, first published in 1957 by Harper & Brothers. It is Highsmith's fifth published novel, the working title originally being The Dog in the Manger. It was brought back into print in the United States in 2003 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Marijane Agnes Meaker was an American writer who, along with Tereska Torres, was credited with launching the lesbian pulp fiction genre, the only accessible novels on that theme in the 1950s.
The Cry of the Owl is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, the eighth of her 22 novels. It was first published in the US in 1962 by Harper & Row and in the UK by Heinemann the following year. It explores, in the phrase of critic Brigid Brophy, "the psychology of the self-selected victim".
Theodora Roosevelt Keogh O'Toole Rauchfuss was an American novelist writing under her first married name, Theodora Keogh, in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Glass Cell (1964) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith. It was the tenth of her 22 novels. It addresses the psychological and physical impact of wrongful imprisonment. It appeared in both the UK and the US in 1964. When first published, the book jacket carried a warning that its opening scene is "almost unacceptable".
A Suspension of Mercy (1965) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith. It was published in the US under the title The Story-Teller later the same year by Doubleday. It was the eleventh of her 22 novels.
Edith's Diary (1977) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, the seventeenth of her 22 novels. It was first published in the UK by Heinemann. One critic described it as "a relentless dissection of an unexceptional life that burns itself out from a lack of love and happiness".
Bouchercon is an annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher; also the inspiration for the Anthony Awards, which have been issued at the convention since 1986. This page details Bouchercon XLI and the 25th Anthony Awards ceremony.
Patricia Schartle Myrer (1923–2010) was an editor, literary agent and publishing executive based in New York City. She was editor-in-chief of Appleton-Century-Crofts publishing. She eventually became president of McIntosh & Otis literary agency. She married novelist Anton Myrer in 1970. Some of the authors she represented were Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Highsmith and Eleanor Hibbert. She retired in 1984 and died in 2010.
Found in the Street (1986) is the twentieth novel by the American expatriate writer Patricia Highsmith, the nineteenth published under her own name. It was published in the UK in April 1986 and in the US in 1987.
People Who Knock on the Door (1983) is a novel by Patricia Highsmith. It was the nineteenth of her 22 novels.
Joan Schenkar was an American playwright and writer. She is known for her biographies of writer Patricia Highsmith, and Dorothy Wilde, as well as for the production of several of her plays in New York in the 1980s, including Signs of Life, Cabin Fever, and The Last of Hitler.
List of works by or about Patricia Highsmith, American novelist.