Read The Talented Miss Highsmith Online
Authors: Joan Schenkar
Pat in France with Sylvia David and her husband, the political cartoonist Jean David (Jeannot). Pat's desire to be an
“ami de maison”
wasn't always an innocent one. (
Collection Annebelle Potin
)
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Pat and her favorite cat, Spider Highsmith, the dedicatee of
The Glass Cell
. Muriel Spark, who adopted Spider, remarked: “He brought a bit of Patricia Highsmith with him.” (
Collection Ogden Kruger
)
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Ellen Blumenthal Hill in the bed Pat has just left to take this photograph. Ellen's four-year affair and thirty-odd-year friendship with Pat added new terrors to the word relationshipâand brought new inspiration to Pat's work. (
Swiss Literary Archives
)
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Dame Sybil Thorndike and Heather Chasen in
Call Me Jacky
, Enid Bagnold's play about a
homicidal alcoholic lesbian. Chasen, who played the title role, based her costume and some of her
characterization on her friend Patricia Highsmith. (
Collection Heather Chasen
)
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Pat and Arthur Koestler in Alpnach on her visit to the Koestlers in the summer of 1969.
Pat and Koestler had an interesting history. (
Swiss Literary Archives
)
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Pat, wearing her trademark Levi 501 jeans, in Montmachoux in 1973 with George and Agnes
Baryliski, the gleaners to whom she dedicated
Ripley Under Ground
. (
Swiss Literary Archives
)
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Pat at her rolltop desk in Moncourt with some creative aids: a cigarette, an ashtray, and her coffee-colored 1956 Olympia Deluxe typewriter.
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Novelist Marion Aboudaram, Pat's lover in France from 1975 to 1978. Pat made suggestions for Marion's translation of Rita May Brown's
Rubyfruit Jungle
, then left her for Tabea Blumenschein. (
Collection Marion Aboudaram
)
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Tabea Blumenschein disguised as a girl. (
Swiss Literary Archives
)
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Tabea Blumenschein disguised as a boy. (
Swiss Literary Archives
)
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Pat and Monique Buffet in Pat's garden in Moncourt. Monique “saved” Pat's novel
The Boy Who Followed Ripley
; it is dedicated to her. (
Collection Monique Buffet
)
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Pat, Monique Buffet, and Frédérique Chambrelent at a fashion event at Maxim's organized by Chambrelent. At Pat's request, Monique is pretending to be her agent. (
Collection Monique Buffet
)
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