The Best American Noir of the Century

Patricia Highsmith (originally Mary Patricia Plangman) (1921-1995) was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and moved to New York as a child, later graduating from Barnard College. Her mother divorced her father five months before she was born, and had tried to abort her by drinking turpentine, so it is not surprising that they did not have a close relationship. Highsmith moved permanently to Europe in 1963, where she enjoyed greater success, both critical and commercial, than in America.

Her first short story, “The Heroine,” was published in Harpers Bazaar shortly after her graduation and was selected as one of the twenty-two best stories of 1945. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train (1950), written while still in her twenties, was moderately successful but became a sensation when it was acquired for the movies by Alfred Hitchcock, who directed the classic film noir and released it in 1951; it starred Robert Walker and Farley Granger. More than twenty films are based on her thirty books (twenty-two novels and eight short story collections), many made in France. Apart from the first novel, she has been most avidly read for her series about the amoral, sexually ambiguous murderer and thief Tom Ripley, beginning with The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) and continuing with Ripley Under Ground (1970), Ripley’s Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), and Ripley Under Water (1991). Ironically, her career and book sales received a huge boost after she died, when The Talented Mr. Ripley was filmed in 1999 by Anthony Minghella, starring Matt Damon, Gwy-neth Paltrow, Jude Law, and Cate Blanchett. It was followed by Ripley’s Game (2002), starring John Malkovich.

“Slowly, Slowly in the Wind” was Highsmith’s personal favorite of all her stories, according to an introduction she wrote for Chillers (1990), a collection of her stories that had been adapted for a television series. She acknowledges that the title was inspired by an aide to then-president Richard M. Nixon, who said that he’d like to see a certain enemy twisting slowly, slowly in the wind. It was first published in her collection Slowly, Slowly in the Wind (1976).

Edward “skip” skipperton spentmostofhislifefeelingangry.lt was his nature. When he was a boy he had a bad temper; now, as a man, he was impatient with people who were slow or stupid. He often met such people in his work, which was to give advice on managing companies. He was good at his job: he could see when people were doing something the wrong way, and he told them in a loud, clear voice how to do it better. The company directors always followed his advice.