 First edition | |
| Author | Patricia Highsmith |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Psychological Thriller, Horror |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers, US; Heinemann, UK |
Publication date | 1960 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 240 pp (hardback edition) |
| OCLC | 310569021 |
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". [1]
Highsmith dedicated the novel to her mother Mary: "To my mother". [2]
Scientist David Kelsey is infatuated with Annabelle, with whom he had a short relationship before moving away to take a job. David hopes the job will allow him to earn enough money to marry Annabelle. However, the two never actually discussed marriage and, while David is away, Annabelle marries another man named Gerald. Unable to accept the turn of events and move on, David begins laboring under the increasingly self-deluding hope that Annabelle will leave her new husband.
Under the assumed identity of William Neumeister, a freelance journalist who frequently travels, David buys a cabin in the country to serve as his eventual home with Annabelle. He furnishes the house to her liking and spends weekends there, performing household routines as if he is doing everything for two. David sends letters, visits Annabelle's home and asks her to divorce Gerald even after she has had a son by him.
Eventually, Gerald discovers David's house and arrives to confront the situation. The two men get into a scuffle which ends with Gerald falling and breaking his neck. David reports the death to the police, identifying himself as Neumeister and describing Gerald as a belligerent stranger who showed up at his door and, spoiling for a fight, was killed accidentally.
Two of David's friends, Wes Carmichael and Effie Brennan, once secretly followed him to the house and, after the death of Gerald, suspect him of a duality about which they question him over time and with escalating incisiveness. Effie, being in love with David and hoping he will ultimately give up on Annabelle, often supports him at key points during his attempts to maintain his two identities.
David builds a web of lies, betrayal and denial. Annabelle wants to meet Neumeister in order to learn more about the circumstances of her husband's death; David fends her off successfully. David secures a new job, sells his house, and buys a new one nearer to Annabelle under his own name. He repeats his intrusive behavior with her new beau, Grant.
One weekend, David, who is beginning to occasionally lose touch with reality, invites Wes and Effie to visit in his new home. After some heavy drinking and quarreling, their relationships deteriorate rapidly, followed by more violence and David on the lam in New York City. There, he fantasizes that Annabelle is with him as they sight-see, shop and dine. When, in a restaurant, he is recognized as a wanted man, he imagines the two of them are fleeing together, but David's time has run out.
Writing in The New York Times , Anthony Boucher called the novel "an impressive psychological study". He wrote: [3]
Objectively yet compassionately she examines a young chemist who spends his weekends in a make-believe in which that girl did not marry somebody else; and relentlessly she shows how his rejection of reality leads to disaster and death. The book has the compulsion of truth; and probably only a professional reviewer in a heavy season would protest that she might have got the same results in something under 100,000 words.
This Sweet Sickness was adapted in 1962 for an episode of the anthology television series The Alfred Hitchcock Hour . The episode, titled "Annabel," starred Dean Stockwell as David Kelsey. The novel was also the basis for the 1977 French-language film Dites-lui que je l'aime (Tell Her I Love Her), starring Gérard Depardieu as David, which Highsmith did not like. [4]
Matt Damon, who starred in the 1999 film adaptation of Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr. Ripley , expressed interest in writing "a really strict adaptation" of This Sweet Sickness. [5]
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.
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.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Anthony Minghella, based on Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel of the same name. Set in the 1950s, it stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, a con artist who is sent from New York City to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf, a rich and spoiled playboy, to return home – however, after failing, Ripley takes extreme measures. Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman also appear in supporting roles.
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.
Purple Noon is a 1960 crime thriller film starring Alain Delon, alongside Marie Laforêt and Maurice Ronet; Romy Schneider, Delon's girlfriend at the time, makes a brief cameo appearance in the film. Directed by René Clément, the French/Italian international co-production is loosely based on the 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. The majority of the film's dialogue is spoken in French, although there are brief sequences in Italian and English.
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.
The Boy Who Followed Ripley is a 1980 psychological thriller by Patricia Highsmith, the fourth in her series about career criminal Tom Ripley. In this book, Ripley continues living quietly on his French estate, Belle Ombre, only obliquely involved in criminal activity. His idyll is shaken when he meets a teenaged boy who is hiding from the police.
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.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1955 psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith. The novel introduced the character of Tom Ripley, who returns in four subsequent novels. It has been adapted numerous times for screen, including Purple Noon (1960) starring Alain Delon, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) starring Matt Damon, and Ripley starring Andrew Scott (2024).
Ripley's Game is a 2002 thriller film directed by Liliana Cavani. It is adapted from the 1974 novel Ripley's Game, the third in Patricia Highsmith's series about the murderous adventures of the anti-hero Tom Ripley. John Malkovich stars as Ripley, opposite Dougray Scott and Ray Winstone. It received positive reviews.
Dites-lui que je l'aime is a 1977 French film directed by Claude Miller and starring Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou. It is based on the 1961 novel This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith.
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".
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 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.
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.
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.
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.