Beautiful Shadow, Andrew Wilson
Beautiful Shadow, Andrew Wilson
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Beautiful Shadow
A Life of Patricia Highsmith

Author: Andrew Wilson

Narrator: Laurel Lefkow

Unabridged: 21 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/18/2022

Synopsis

Patricia Highsmith, author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley, had more than her fair share of secrets.During her life, she felt uncomfortable about discussing the source of her fiction and refused to answer questions about her private life. Yet after her death in February 1995, Highsmith left behind a vast archive of personal documents—diaries, notebooks, and letters—which detail the links between her life and her work.Drawing on these intimate papers, together with material gleaned from her closest friends and lovers, Andrew Wilson has written the first biography of an author described by Graham Greene as the “poet of apprehension.” Wilson illuminates the dark corners of Highsmith’s life, casts light on mysteries of the creative process, and reveals the secrets that the writer chose to keep hidden until after her death.

About Andrew Wilson

Andrew Wilson is a novelist, biographer, and journalist. He has won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Biography and the Lambda Literary Award for Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith. His nonfiction books also include biographies of Sylvia Plath, Alexander McQueen, Harold Robbins, and a group biography of the survivors of the Titanic. His first novel, The Lying Tongue, was shortlisted for the Jelf First Novel Award.

About Laurel Lefkow

Laurel Lefkow is an accomplished radio actress and winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards for audiobook narration. Her many theater credits include Look Back in Anger, Little Foxes, The Heiress, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Boy Next Door. On television she can be seen in A Class Act, Small Metal Jacket, and The Perfect Family.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul

I’m not really a fan of Patricia Highsmith but I do like a good biography. And this isn’t one. The other day I was checking up a fact about Truman Capote and picked up Gerald Clarke’s book and was quite lost for about an hour as Truman leaped and gamboled through the pages, born aloft like a bubble......more

Goodreads review by Jon

A few years ago I found a quote (I love quotes), by a certain Amy Hempel, that intrigued me: “I read about a famous mystery writer who worked for one week in a department store. One day she saw a woman come in and buy a doll. The mystery writer found out the woman’s name, and took a bus to New Jersey......more

Goodreads review by Yooperprof

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) is best known for her disturbing books about sensitive and sympathetic psychopathic murderers (i.e. "Strangers on a Train" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley") - and for the movies they've inspired. Andrew Wilson's biography is fascinating, well researched and convincing; I......more

Quotes

“Excellent and outstandingly readable…Brilliant and compelling.” Daily Mail (UK)

“An exemplary biography of a tortured, difficult, and outstandingly gifted human being.” Sunday Times (London)

“Wilson has delved with extraordinary diligence, and everything he has unearthed is remarkable.” Mail on Sunday (London)

“A fascinating, beautifully balanced, and meticulously researched biography, bringing us as close to understanding Highsmith as we are ever likely to get.” Sunday Telegraph (UK)

“Wilson’s portrait of Highsmith…is as haunting and as chilling as the stories and novels Highsmith crafted…The biographer’s exhaustive attention to detail coupled with his access to Highsmith’s journals and letters, and extensive interviews with her friends, lovers and associates, allow him to reveal in excruciating detail this very private person.” Publishers Weekly

Awards

  • Edgar Award
  • Lambda Literary Award
  • Whitbread Award
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