Tag: Patricia Highsmith

Screening Room: ‘A Talent for Murder’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Books, Film - NewLeave a comment

I reviewed A Talent for Murder at Slant Magazine:

Anton Corbijn’s A Talent for Murder, a fictional story that vividly captures the psychology of Patricia Highsmith (Helen Mirren), is the rare successful film about a writer. At the start, Highsmith is feeling gloomy and blocked, staring at a blank sheet of paper in her typewriter carriage. That is, until book editor Edward Ridgeway (Alden Ehrenreich) appears at her door, begging her to start writing again. From there, the film slices away at the usual biopic folderol to unveil the dark linkages between the writer and her most famous creation…

A Talent for Murder opens next Friday. Here’s the trailer:

Writer’s Desk: Amuse Yourself

On By chrisbarsantiIn Books, WritingLeave a comment

In her 1966 primer, Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley) had some choice advice for what writers should do. Above all, she said:

The first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself. If you can amuse yourself for the length of time it takes to write a book, the publishers and the readers can and will come later.

This should probably not be taken to mean that if you hit a rough patch in your writing to immediately abandon ship. But if you have difficulty sustaining interest in your topic, it is almost certain readers will do the same.

Nota Bene: Patricia Highsmith and Stan Lee

On By chrisbarsantiIn Books, Comics-Graphic NovelsLeave a comment

During World War II, Marvel Comics impresario Stan Lee was working as an in-house writer for the U.S. Army (training movies about organizing your footlocker or field-stripping your rifle). He was still moonlighting for Marvel (then called Timely Comics), where the editor who replaced him, Vince Fago, was intrigued by another of their writers: Patricia Highsmith.

According to Highsmith’s biographer Joan Schenkar:

Vince Fago took Lee up to Pat’s apartment “near Sutton Place,” hoping to make a “match” between Pat and Stan Lee. But the future creator of the talented Mr. Ripley was not fated to go out on a date with the future facilitator of Spider-Man. “Stan Lee,” said Vince Fago, “was only interested in Stan Lee,” and Pat wasn’t exactly admitting where her real sexual interests lay…

Which raises the question: Who would win in a showdown: Captain America or Tom Ripley? Discuss.