Amesbury Public Library

Patricia Highsmith's diaries and notebooks, the New York years, 1941-1950, edited by Anna von Planta ; with a foreword by Joan Schenkar

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages [624]-629) and index

facsimiles

index present

non fiction

Patricia Highsmith's diaries and notebooks

bibliography

1320809640

edited by Anna von Planta ; with a foreword by Joan Schenkar

the New York years, 1941-1950

"Before Alfred Hitchcock adapted her debut novel, Strangers on a Train, for the big screen; before her suave and sociopathic Thomas Ripley snaked his way into the canon of psychological suspense: and before The Price of Salt became a cult classic of romantic obsession, who was Patricia Highsmith? Focused on her formative years in Manhattan, this condensed edition of Highsmith's monumental Diaries and Notebooks reveals "Pat" at her most passionate and florescent. Beginning in 1941 at Barnard College and encompassing the Texas native's adventurous twenties, The New York Years intertwines scenes from her dizzying social life--rife with sleepless nights barhopping in the queer underground Greenwich Village scene, always juggling too many lovers--with an intimate self-portrait of a young artist who by day dispassionately wrote comics for a paycheck. Amid all the hangovers and the breakups, she read voraciously and honed her craft with verve. Laid bare in this perennial reader's edition are the bold, hilarious, romantic, tragic, and maddeningly contradictory observations of one of "our greatest modernist writers" (Gore Vidal)."--Back cover

Introduction: Patricia Highsmith's New York years -- Foreword by Joan Schenkar: Pat Highsmith's after-school education: the international daisy chain -- 1921-1940: The early years -- 1941: College, politics, and heavenly kisses, or: "I have a great destiny before me." -- 1941: College graduation, or: "I'm smoking too much and life is generally confusing." -- 1943: Living alone, working full-time, or: "I am a genius. I hear it from all sides." -- 1944: Winter in Mexico, or: "I am lonely for a thousand things." -- 1945: Writing and dating, or: "The world and its martinis are mine!" -- 1946: Looking for love, or: "I can never be moderate in anything." -- 1947: Drafting Strangers on a Train, or: "One does not live forever, and one is young even a much shorter time." -- 1948: Yaddo Artist Colony, or: "If only I'd known how to write a book before I started!" -- 1949: A book deal and a broken engagement, or "I will not be imprisoned so." -- 1950-January 1951: Drafting The Price of Salt, or: "Writing, of course, is a substitute for the life I cannot live, am unable to live." -- Outro: 1951-1995: A life abroard -- Acknowledgements -- A time line of Highsmith's life and works -- A sample of Highsmith's foreign-language notes -- Bibliography -- Filmography -- Index of names and works

New York years, 1941-1950