Tonight’s episode was inspired by seeing Loving Highsmith, so I chose to read at random from Patricia Highsmith’s diaries and journals. Her cahiers (as she always called them) came in two flavours: daily recaps of what she had done and where she had gone and how she felt about it all, and in the more…
Tag: Patricia Highsmith
Review: Loving Highsmith (2022)
I meant to go to Film Forum on Saturday to see a screening of this with a Q&A after with the director Eva Vitija and Megan Abbott, but alas something I ate on Friday made it inadvisable, so checking the Zeitgeist website I found it was playing down in Newburgh. I had never been to…
Surreal Noir: 19 Apr 22
Tonight, it’s SURREAL NOIR at NoBounds Radio. Episode Nine: My text for this episode is Leonora Carrington’s ‘My Mother is a Cow’ which you can find in the collected stories. It features surrealism, ritual, goddesses, sacrifice, skin, magic, and a bit of Graves’ The White Goddess. If this sounds familiar, it’s adapted from the talk…
Out Now: Stalking the Stalker
My essay ‘Stalking the Stalker: Jamie Thraves adapting Patricia Highsmith’s The Cry of the Owl‘ is out now in Film International. You can get the essay via your library or purchase from the journal. Thanks Matthew and the crew. Here’s an overview: The 2009 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Cry of the Owl faces the…
Surreal Noir: 22 Mar 22
Tonight, it’s SURREAL NOIR at NoBounds Radio. Episode Eight: It’s Women’s History Month, so a variety of things including adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s Deep Water (no, I haven’t seen the brand new one yet but I did hear someone refer to it as Gone Girl 2.0 which is encouraging. All texts mentioned: Leave Her to…
Surreal Noir: 22 Dec 21
In a contemplative yuletide vein, it’s SURREAL NOIR at NoBounds Radio. This episode gets me belatedly into seasonal mode: an exploration of fictional accounts of the Parker-Hulme murder and its repercussions. In the darkest days of the year we tend to hide; with good reason – who knows what might lurk in the dark. Even…
Surreal Noir: 24 Nov 21
Coming up on the eating holidays, it’s SURREAL NOIR at NoBounds Radio. This episode gets me belatedly into Noirvember mode: a dive into Highsmith’s Cry of the Owl which my students just read (they’re not onto Deep Water so maybe I will get on to that next here). I also wrote about the 2009 adaptation…
Highsmith @ 100: Ripley
TOM RIPLEY: MASTER CRIMINAL? I know I have forgotten to keep up with posting the assignments for my students, but if you want to read along, here’s the intro text for this week: I’m always amazed at the back cover copy of different editions of this book. I’ve got this edition with me. It refers…
Surreal Noir 22 Sep 21
The Equinox brings the monthly return of SURREAL NOIR at NoBounds Radio. This episode brings together another unlikely pair: Alice Rahon and Patricia Highsmith. This episode may sound a little different: cobbled together from the phone and recordings made in hasty moments when I could find a little quiet here at my dad’s. Not easy…
Highsmith @ 100: The Course
The fall semester begins today. My courses are still all online. I have changed the Crime Fiction course to be all Highsmith, because obviously being busy already means nothing. I’m resisting overloading them with biographical information at the start, instead planning to parcel it out as they make their own discoveries, though I gave them…
K. A. Laity 