I'm on a kick folks!

We haven't had book club in a bit, and that's my fault. It does not mean, however, that i have ceased reading voraciously. In fact, it's been a spring of very good books!

Started out with A.S. Byatt's "The Children's Book". Very big. Very British. Very whimsical. Very good. I highly recommend it if you're the sort who likes to follow a character through 10 or 20 years of their life. I love forming an intimate friendship with characters in novels, and Byatt provides no veils for the people who populate her written world.

But that is not why we're here. I saw in a book review...Harpers or maybe Vanity Fair...the description of a biography on Patricia Highsmith. Now if you don't know Highsmith, she's the woman who wrote Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" as well as all the "Talented Mr. Ripley" novels. I hadn't read any of her work before, but the biography, "The Talented Miss Highsmith" sounded really dark and interesting.....just how we like it here at Southern Gothic.

So, I picked the book up...all 20 lbs of it. Like the Byatt novel, this one is is a beast of a book. I'm not sure I like how the set up of the book was structured. Instead of following Highsmith's life chronologically, the author bounces around back and forth between old age, young adulthood, childhood, professional life and private affairs. It results in a redundant read, but even so, with Highsmith as the subject matter, I stayed curiously invested in her life story. If you're not interested in all the particulars of her existance, here's the basic gist.....

Highsmith had a love hate relationship with her mother, who was a beautiful and wildly dramatic woman. Her mother left her to live with her stern grandparents in their Southern home while she moved North and remarried. Highsmith, always too smart for her own good, seemed to resent everything around her, and everyone. It's strange reading the biography of someone who seems to not have ANY redeemable qualities! She drank too much. Smoked too much. Said rude things too often. Cheated and lied to lovers. Two thirds of the way through the book, I got tired and didn't want to glorify someone who was so loathsome anymore. I didn't get what all the hype was. Was she SO talented that it made up for her often selfish and destructive behavior?

(sidenote** Highsmith got her start writing for comic books - considered back then to be bastardized literature. But it gave her a keen sense of action and pace in her storytelling. Perhaps I was interested in her career path, given WE are working on our graphic novel and hoping it parlays into something larger)

The only thing I could do was read one of her books. I didn't want to go for the more mainstream novels, like the ones I mentioned before. So I picked up, "The Price of Salt".

   The deal with this book, is that Highsmith was so paranoid about it, she published it under a different name. Highsmith was a lesbian, and a brave one at that, because she didn't shy away from telling stories from her viewpoint. But this book hit a little too close to home, and she feared folks would think it was autobiographical. 

   Wherever she got her inspiration from, it worked. And yes, she is as good as all the hype! There's nothing seedy or exploitative in this novel. It wasn't a story written for shock value during a time when gay or lesbian literature was still a taboo. It's about a girl who is taken by an older woman she helps while working in a department store. The story follows their friendship as it grows into something more...a kindredness that is sweet and warm that becomes painfully hard to make sense of as external influences take their toll.

   Very quickly, gender loses it's importance in this story. Highsmith so perfectly captures the ACHE of being in love with someone. I was sucked in by that feeling, and reminded of my first heartbreak at 14. She must have been a walking wound to make art like this. 

   I was won over. Wicked as she was, this woman could write!

   As a followup, I picked up "Edith's Diary". I finished it last night. I'm still nervous as a result.

   This book follows Edith as her life falls apart. And while the world disintegrates around her, her diary becomes her sanctuary, a place that she can control and turn into a happy reprieve from the disappointment of reality. It is so perfectly crafted! Edith never bemoans her life, and it is not until her circle of friends start worrying about her that the reader steps back and reexamines all that has happened. I'm stuck nicely in a feeling of bewilderment. The character of Edith never seemed crazy to me. Highsmith makes her so practical. And yet there is a subconscious build toward madness. It's so good. So damned good. I really hope some of you give these books a go.

   I guess Highsmith reminds me of that kid in school that never says a word and scowls from the desk in the back...the one who rejects everyone else before they can be rejected.....the disinterested one who you know secretly has something huge to offer. So this book club goes out to all those torn up souls. 

Hope all you readers out there have a great week!

Hil