The Talented Miss Highsmith (111 page)

22.
PH, “Two Disagreeable Pigeons,” in
Nothing That Meets the Eye
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2002).

23.
Cahier 19, 7/22/50.

24.
Diary 10, Jan. 4, 1950.

25.
PH letter to Ronald Blythe, 26 Nov. 1966 (Collection Ronald Blythe).

31. The Real Romance of Objects: Part 1

1.
PH, “The View from My Window,” draft article dated 1980.

2.
CWA Josyane Savigneau, 1 July 2002.

3.
Ripley Under Ground
(1970) features a cellar in which one man is murdered and another man mimics suicide. Of the enormous cellar in her house in Tegna, Pat wrote to her architect: “The guests can go in the cellar.” Nothing good happens underground in the Highsmith imagination.

4.
Cahier 23, 5/6/55.

5.
PH letter to KKS, 27 Oct. 1953.

6.
CWA KKS, 12 June 2004.

7.
Marijane Meaker letter to the author, 7 Nov. 2003.

8.
Ibid. Mary responded to Meaker with a tsunami from Texas: five closely typed single-spaced pages setting out (1) Pat's terrible treatment of Mary on several continents; (2) a long list of the older women Mary held responsible for influencing/corrupting Pat; (3) Mary's own formerly glorified circumstances including her “Filipino house boy (“He was small, slight, attractive and graceful as a ballet dancer and made an effort to please me in every way”); and (4) a self-assessment: “I too am an extrovert and have never met a stranger.” Mary—so much like her daughter—had no trouble in emptying the contents of her mind onto a page when she was exercised on a subject:

First of all and I think you will agree—PAT IS SICK. Somewhere along the line she is insecure, unsure and completely swayed by women older than herself whom I have met and loathe[d] on sight—Rosalind [Constable], [Elizabeth] Lyne, [Lil] Picard and the like…. It's the last person Pat is with who has the influence. She is exactly like a chamelian [
sic
] changing colors and turning on a good friend as tho mesmerized…. Can you figure her out…. I think Pat is wearing a very uncomfortable hair-shirt of her own designing…. I can only wait—I still have faith in Pat, I brought her up and I know her background.

9.
CWA Josyane Savigneau, 1 July 2002.

10.
CWA Phyllis Nagy, 13 Oct. 2002.

11.
Ibid.

12.
PH letter to KKS, 31 May 1989.

13.
Don Swaim,
Book Notes,
Oct. 1987.

14.
Diary 1, July 7, 1941.

15.
PH letter to Nini Wills, 9 Mar. 1972.

16.
MCH letter to PH, 10 May 1972.

17.
Cahier 36, 2/11/87.

18.
PH letter to MCH, 9 April 1971.

19.
Cahier 9, PH transcription from high school notebooks, July 1937.

20.
PH letter to DOC, 26 Dec. 1968.

21.
Alain Oulman letters to PH, 3 Dec. 1979 and 8 Feb. 1980. PH letters to Alain Oulman, 21 Aug. 1979 and 10 Feb. 1980 (CLA).

22.
PH letter to Alex Szogyi, 23 Aug. 1970.

23.
PH letter to BKS, 24–25 Oct. 1970.

24.
CWA Claire Cauvin, 4 July 2002.

25.
PH letter to BKS, 1 Mar. 1972.

26.
PH letter to Alex Szogyi, 10 Sept. 1973.

27.
CWA Vivien De Bernardi, 15 Aug. 2003.

28.
CWA Marion Aboudaram, 23 Sept. 2002.

29.
PH letter to MB, 2 July 1980.

30.
Cahier 34, 12 Aug. 1978.

31.
CWA Phyllis Nagy, 13 Oct. 2002.

32.
PH letter to Florine Coates, 9 July 1994.

33.
CWA Vivien De Bernardi, 15 Aug. 2003.

34.
KKS letter to the author, 16 Jan. 2003.

35.
PH,
The Traffic of Jacob's Ladder
, manuscript fragment.

36.
Don Swaim,
Book Notes,
Oct. 1987.

37.
PH letter to Bettina Berch, 17 May 1984.

38.
PH letter to Abe Janssens, piano player at the Hotel Normandy in Deauville, France, 15 Oct. 1987.

39.
Cahier 30, 11/9/69.

40.
PH letter to Lil Picard, 11 June 1969 (UIL).

41.
CWA Christa Maerker, 21 July 2004.

42.
Cahier 21, 11/30/52.

43.
PH letter to Ellen Blumenthal Hill, 30–31 Jan. 1982.

44.
CWA Bettina Berch, 10 Aug. 2003.

45.
PH letter to KKS, 7 May 1989.

46.
PH letter to Bettina Berch, 13 Apr. 1984.

47.
Donald Swaim,
Book Notes,
Oct. 1987.

48.
CWA Bettina Berch, 10 Aug. 2003.

49.
Ibid.

50.
Ibid.

51.
PH letter to Bettina Berch, 21 July 1984.

52.
Bettina Berch, introduction to unpublished interview, “A Talk with Patricia Highsmith,” 15 June 1984.

53.
Bettina Berch, “A Talk with Patricia Highsmith,” pp. 10, 17.

54.
CWA Vince Fago, 28 Nov. 2001.

55.
PH letter to Marijane Meaker, 18 Oct. 1988 (Collection Marijane Meaker).

56.
CWA Josyane Savigneau, 1 July 2002.

57.
Patricia Schartle Myrer letter to PH, 21 Aug. 1979.

32. The Real Romance of Objects: Part 2

1.
On 18 October 1973, Pat's literary agency in Paris, the William Bradley Agency, wrote her: “According to your final instructions, we have just asked Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. here to transfer to your account with S.R.M. Management, E. D. Sassoon, Nassau, Bahamas, the film monies received from Film Number one and Glan Productions for
The Tremor of Forgery
.”

2.
PH letter to KKS, 25 Aug. 1969.

3.
CWA Samuel Okoshken, 25 June 2003.

4.
PH letter to Monique Buffet, 14 Jan. 1980 (Collection Monique Buffet).

5.
Ibid., 9 Oct. 1979 (Collection MB).

6.
Ibid., 14 Jan. 1980 (Collection MB).

7.
CWA Samuel Okoshken, 25 June 2003.

8.
PH letter to Monique Buffet, 14 Jan. 1980 (Collection Monique Buffet).

9.
CWA Samuel Okoshken, 25 June 2003.

10.
PH,
The Tremor of Forgery
, pp. 139–40.

11.
PH letter to DOC, 9 Nov. 1969.

12.
PH letter to KKS, 9 July 1973.

13.
CWA Vivien De Bernardi, 15 Aug. 2003.

14.
PH letter to BKS, 31 Mar. 1980.

15.
PH letter to MB, 29 Mar. 1980 (Collection Monique Buffet).

16.
Ibid.

17.
PH letter to BKS, 19 June 1980.

18.
Ibid., 31 March 1980.

19.
CWA Samuel Okoshken, 25 Aug. 2003.

20.
CWA MB, 7 Apr. 2003.

21.
Paul Bowles letter to PH, 23 Feb. 1990.

22.
PH letter to MB, 28–29 Mar. 1980 (Collection Monique Buffet).

23.
PH,
Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction
(New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1990), p. 143.

24.
Ibid.

25.
PH,
Edith's Diary
, p. 296.

26.
PH letter to MB, 28–29 Mar. 1980 (Collection Monique Buffet).

27.
Ibid.

28.
CWA Marion Aboudaram, 21 Sept. 2002. Also CWA Christa Maerker, 27 July 2008.

29.
Cahier 31, 8/25/71.

30.
Ibid.

31.
CWA KKS, 20 Dec. 2002.

32.
Cahier 31, 8/25/71.

33.
PH letter to MB, 9–10 Apr. 1980 (Collection Monique Buffet).

34.
Ibid.

35.
CWA Marylin Scowden, 1 Sept. 2002.

36.
Diary 16, Jan. 17, 1970.

37.
PH letter to DOC, 9 Nov. 1969.

38.
Rosalind Constable letter to PH, 15 Jan. 1968.

39.
Cahier 30, 8/13/69.

40.
Cahier 30, 7/29/68.

41.
Rosalind Constable letter to PH, 3 Mar. 1968.

42.
Ibid., 14 Nov. 1969.

43.
CWA MB, 25 Aug. 2004.

44.
PH letter to Bettina Berch, 4 Sept. 1985.

45.
CWA Daniel Keel, 20 Mar. 2003.

46.
CWA Alex Szogyi, 11 Dec. 2001.

47.
CWA Robert Lumpkin, 1 Aug. 2004.

48.
Andrew Wilson,
Beautiful Shadow
(London: Bloomsbury, 2003), p. 341.

49.
Ibid., p. 388.

50.
Cahier 35, 6/1/83.

51.
PH letter to Bettina Berch, 14 Feb. 1986.

52.
Barbara Skelton, “Patricia Highsmith at Home,”
The London Magazine
, Aug.-Sept. 1995.

53.
PH,
The Talented Mr. Ripley
, p. 49.

54.
PH,
The Boy Who Followed Ripley
, pp. 63–64.

55.
Ibid., p. 64.

56.
Cahier 13, 8/12/45.

33. The Real Romance of Objects: Part 3

1.
CWA Phyllis Nagy, 26 June 2002.

34. The Cake that was Shaped Like a Coffin: Part I

1.
The Animal-Lovers Book of Beastly Murder, Little Tales of Misogyny, Slowly, Slowly in the Wind, Mermaids on the Golf Course, The Black House.

2.
CWA Otto Penzler, 23 Dec. 2002.

3.
Ibid., 27 Dec. 2002.