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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780393327724
ISBN number: 0393327728
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 736
Printing Date: December 12, 2005
Publishing house: W. W. Norton
Sale Popularity Level: 429357
Studio: W. W. Norton
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The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith presents five of Highsmith's classic short story collections in a single masterful volume. Compelling, twisted, and fiercely intelligent, this landmark collection showcases Highsmith's mastery of the short story form.
In a cruel twist of irony, Texas-born Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) is being recognized only after her death for her inestimable genius in her native land. With the savage humour of Waugh and the macabre sensibility of Poe, she brought a distinctly contemporary acuteness to her prolific body of noir fiction. Including over 60 short stories written throughout her career, collected together for the very first time, The Selected Stories reveals the stunning versatility and terrifying power of Highsmith's work.
These stories highlight the remarkable range of Highsmith's powers—her unique ability to quickly, almost imperceptibly, draw out the mystery and strangeness of her subject, which appears achingly ordinary to our naked eye.
Whether writing about jaded wives or household pets, Highsmith continually upsets our expectations and presents a world frighteningly familiar to our own, where danger lurks around every turn. Stories from The Animal-Lovers Book of Beastly Murders portray, with incisive humor, the murderously competitive desires of our most trusted companions. In this viciously satirical reprise of Kafka, cats, dogs, and cockroaches are no longer necessary aspects of a happy home but actually have the power to destroy it. In the short sketches that make up the Little Tales of Misogyny, Highsmith rediscovers predictable female characters—'The Dancer,' 'The Female Novelist,' 'The Prude'—and, through scathing humor, invests them with uniquely destructive powers. As a writer, Highsmith was all too well aware of the stolid patriarchal conventions that ruled her day—her publisher rejected her second book out of handbecause of its homosexual content. She is not a polemicist, but, as stories like 'Oona the Jolly Cave Woman' and 'The Mobile Bed-Object' reveal, her bizarre, haunting fiction continually betrays the inadequacy of our conventional understanding of female character.
Highsmith eventually moved away from these coolly satiric, darkly comic exercises, and in her later collections, The Black House, Slowly, Slowly in the Wind, and Mermaids on the Golf Course, she uses the warm familiarities of middle-class life—the manicured lawns, the cozy uptown apartments, the local pubs—as the backbone for her chilling portrayals. 'The Black House,' for instance, explores the small-town male camaraderie and the destructive secret it masks: in this world, the fact that everyone knows your name is more likely a curse than a blessing. In the title story of the final collection presented here, 'Mermaids on a Golf-Course,' a man's extraordinary brush with death endows his everyday desires with fantastically devastating consequences.
In her later work, Highsmith adds a dimension of penetrating psychological insight, evoked most vividly in stories like 'A Curious Suicide' and 'The Stuff of Madness,' where the precarious line between fantasy and reality is blurred and we experience the terrifying possibility of slipping between them.
Great writers view the world askew, and in their art they reflect our world back to us, slightly distorted. The Selected Stories reveals Highsmith's deft and exacting style, her incisive satirical intelligence, and her faultless eye for depicting the inner tremblings of human character. Her world remains all the more frightening because we recognize it as our own.
Amazon.com Review:
Penzler Pick, September 2001: One of the truly brilliant short-story writers of the 20th century, Patricia Highsmith has at last received the acclaim she never had while alive.
The release of the excellent film The Talented Mr. Ripley appears to have brought Highsmith many readers who may have heard of her but had never read her books. In spite of the fame of Strangers on a Train, published when she was still in her 20s, Highsmith never enjoyed commercial sucess in the United States (though she was a huge bestseller in Germany and Austria).
Now, six years after her death at the age of 74, Norton is reissuing her novels and has compiled this giant collection of her short fiction, incorporating the complete text of five previously published collections. This volume also includes an introduction by Graham Greene, somewhat truncated from its original (and uncredited) publication in The Snail-Watcher and Other Stories (1970). It is abbreviated because, oddly, none of the stories from that excellent collection are included in the present omnibus, and Greene makes reference to what is perhaps Highsmith's most famous story, 'The Snail- Watcher.'
Even lacking this masterpiece and the equally unsettling 'The Terrapin,' there are many distinguished tales of horror and, as Greene accurately defines them, apprehension.
In 'The Hand,' the very first story in the collection originally published as Little Tales of Misogyny, a young man asks the father of his beloved for her hand and is given it--in a box. Equally unappealing events befall the women (and, indeed, the men) skewered in the other stories in this aptly titled volume, most of which are so short that they are mere vignettes, each startling in the terse clarity of the prose and the matter-of-factness of the fates meted out to the protagonists.
'The Dancer' is strangled in quiet rage by her partner, who walks away from her lifeless body as an audience cheers the performance. 'The Coquette' is murdered by the two lovers she had set against each other, and they are let off by a judge who had also been tortured by her coquetry. He forgave their infatuation with her, 'a state that inspired his pity, since he had become sixty years old,' as Highsmith cruelly explains.
'The Black House,' the title story of another collection, introduces a pleasant, happy, and charming young man who is, of course, doomed. He tests his courage by entering a dark house, reputedly haunted and the scene of young lovers' trysts as well as the vicious murder of a boy, and finds it empty and unthreatening. When he describes his adventure to his friends at the local pub, he is killed for a transgression that remains unknown to him.
This important book may not be for everyone, but if you don't mind a sense of unrelenting doom and are willing to risk nightmares of dread, you will find the prose dazzling and the fiction memorable. --Otto Penzler
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Rated by buyers 
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Texas-born Patricia Highsmith, author of novels "Strangers on a Train," and "The Talented Mr. Ripley," could be considered a writer's writer: whatever she's working on, she sure does well. She began concentrating on short stories during the 1970's; she writes a tight little masterpiece of a story, set in a world we generally recognize as ours, among people whom we might once have known, back in the day when you could recognize adults because they drank and smoked. She was more popular in Europe, where she chose to live, rather than in America during her lifetime. However, since the recent movie of "The Talented Mr. Ripley," her work is catching on more at home. And don't feel too sorry for her -- in her lifetime, this author of twenty, noir-in-outlook books, won the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Edgar Allen Poe Award, Le Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, and the Award of the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain.
"Selected Stories," compiled in 2001, brings together outstanding stories from several previous collections: "The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murder," "Little Tales of Misogyny," "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind," "The Black House," and "Mermaids on the Golf Course." It delivers a lotta pages, and a lotta stories, though some of the most memorable aren't here.
In the very first book, "The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murder," stories are presented from the animal's point of view, and generally about the revenge of an animal whom humans have wronged. The very first story, "Chorus Girl's Absolutely Last Performance," is simply overwhelming. In twelve intense pages, the author lays out the plight of a zoo elephant, and what must have happened to any elephant for it to be in a zoo. This, written at a time when very few of us, even those who claimed to love animals, would have thought of all the implications in an animal's captivity. There's also another laying out the horrors of battery-farming chickens: once again, Highsmith was well ahead of her time. There's a memorable tale of a camel, and several entertaining cat stories: Highsmith, like a lot of us, loved her cats.
"Little Tales of Misogyny" are by and large quite short, never too short for the writer to get her point across, but too short to pack an emotional punch. Her targets are some of the predictably weaker sisters among us: girly girls, breeders, party girls, and her satire's scathing.
Stories from the last three books, "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind," "The Black House," and "Mermaids on the Golf Course," are generally longer, set in a recognizable fairly contemporary world, and among people we might know, with a twist. We're going to see several suicides, several suicide attempts, and a lot of hospital rooms. In "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind," "The Pond,"an exercise in terror, looks into the grey heart of a pleasant-looking exurban pond. "Woodrow Wilson's Necktie," and "A Curious Suicide," are chilling first-person looks at successful murderers. "Please Don't Shoot The Trees," is, so far as I know, Highsmith's only venture into science fiction.
In "The Black House," "Something the Cat Dragged In," charts a group of pleasant, middle-class English and Americans who talk themselves into helping a murderer cover up his crime. The title story, "The Black House," pulls the masks off a group of seemingly friendly guys in a small town bar somewhere in the States, and shows us some nasty insides.
The title story of "Mermaids on the Golf Course" is an insightful look at the devastating consequences a close brush with death have had upon a man. And "The Stuff of Madness" is an unsettling examination of the marriage, and the garden, of an apparently happy English couple: but oh, macabre things do grow in that garden.
Highsmith, in both her longer and shorter fictions, is for those who are willing to have their worlds shaken, not stirred. But she rewards the adventurous reader.
Rated by buyers 
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Known for her novels (see STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY), the late Patricia Highsmith was also a fabulous short story writer with her myriad of tales containing suspense and believable protagonists even when the star or support cast is an animal. Until this anthology this reviewer had no idea how many and how good her shorts are.
The collection is divided into five major segments filled with tension and in many cases dark humor. "The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murder" includes thirteen tales of angry animals demanding respect sometimes violently (ask that brave rat) from humans destroying their world. Section Two, "The Little Tales of Misogyny" contains seventeen tales of morality with choices not always being the high ground. Number three "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind" holds twelve more classical type horror/sci fi thrillers. "The Black House" compilation is eleven psychological haunted house tales with quite a human twist. Finally the last grouping, "Mermaids on the Golf Course" blends horror with loosely put romantic fantasy in eleven fine tales.
THE SELECTED STORIES OF PATRICIA HIGHSMITH is a fantastic collection that showcases the depth of a great novelist to bring her trademark suspense to the short format.
Harriet Klausner
Rated by buyers -
Since I am not a huge fan of Highsmith's mystery novels, enjoying this superb collection was an unexpected surprise (after being recommended to me by a friend). There are five collections of Highsmith's short fiction included in this book and there are a few undeniable masterpieces in each one of them. First up is "The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murder," which includes stories where the protagonists are animals trying to survive in the human world. My favorite is "The Bravest Rat in Venice," about a rat exacting a horrible revenge on the family who maimed him. Also enjoyable was "Notes from a Respectable Cockroach." "The Little Tales of Misogyny" was my least favorite group of stories, though "The Victim" is very well done. For me, the truly great stories of this anthology begin with the "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind" section (and where Highsmith begins to show her amazing versatility as a writer). "The Pond," is a terrific tale of horror and bereavement. "One for the Islands" is a creepy sci-fi cruise. "Please Don't Shoot the Trees" is a superb futuristic tale. And "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind" is a masterpiece of horror and murder. From the collection of "The Black House" are even more terrific stories. "Not One of Us" is a wicked, gossipy tale of friends and outsiders. "The Terrors of Basket-Weaving" exhibits "possession" at its most haunting. "Blow It" is a great comedy of manners of a man trying to choose between two girlfriends. And "The Black House" is a haunted house story gone wrong, where it is not the house that is as haunted as the men who keep the story of it alive. Highsmith exhibits a more domestic, suburban style with the stories in "Mermaids on the Golf Course." "Chris's Last Party" is about an actor's fear when his mentor becomes ill. "The Cruelest Month" is indeed cruel. And the finest story of the collection (and my favorite) is "The Romantic," which chronicles a young woman's "fantasy dates." Highsmith is a good, succinct writer who doesn't waste time embellishing or exaggerating her prose, instead letting the plot lead her characters toward their conclusions. I also highly recommend "Nothing That Meets the Eye: The Uncollected Stories of Patricia Highsmith," another compilation of Highsmith's short stories. While not as terrific as "Selected Stories," it does include a few favorites and masterpieces, among them "The Second Cigarette," "A Bird in Hand," and "The Trouble with Mrs. Blynn, the Trouble with the World."
Rated by buyers -
You often lose track of time reading this, because the stories don't drag, and they are mostly compelling - you'll often go through 2 or 3 of the collections in one sitting. And this also serves as a superb introduction to Patricia Highsmith's work.
We start with two odd collections, "The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder," then "Little Tales of Misogyny." The "Animal-Lover's Book" has "full-length" (i.e. about 20 pages long) stories of the blood-lusting intent of cats, goats, horses, rats, camels, and more! They're readable because the animals' feelings toward whatever malicious humans are involved are presented as they might be for a person, save for behavioral characteristics. A couple also have European settings which are used to the same effect as in some of her novels. "Little Tales" has a misleading title, since not all the stories can be considered misogynistic - rather, they are often tales of comeuppance, or victimization, just the main character is a woman (who won't always be on the receiving end - like in "The Hand," or "The Breeder"). All are very brief, so they're either "over with fast, at least" or "good, for their confines."
The remaining 3 collections - "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind,"
"The Black House," and "Mermaids on the Golf Course" play it straight, with stories of crime (the unsettling "The Black House"), suspense ("A Shot From Nowhere"), horror ("Slowly, Slowly in the Wind," "Woodrow Wilson's Necktie" [kind of]), "apprehension" by Graham Greene's introduction ("The Terrors of Basket-Weaving," "The Pond"), and what may be called "stylistic experiments," or none of the above - some ("Chris' Last Party," "Not in Ths Life, Maybe the Next") work, some ("Please Don't Shoot the Trees") don't; although even the lesser stories are still readable, if not as memorable as the best ones.
Anyway, this stands as a very worthy purchase, as is its companion volume (the uncollected stories).
Rated by buyers -
My interest in Patricia Highsmith was sparked by the two movies based on her novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (the Matt Damon picture and "Purple Noon" in which Alain Delon plays Tom Ripley). I have read a couple of the other Ripley novels, but continue to prefer the very first one over any of the sequels. In researching Highsmith on the Internet, I saw a collection of stories called "Little Tales of Misogyny" listed in her bibliography. Needless to say, the title intrigued me. Though many of the stories in "The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith" have been continuously in print, I have been unable to find a copy the Misogyny Tales.
The Misogyny Tales take up about 60 pages of this 724-page collection, each tale being only 3 to 5 pages long. It's hard to know what to make of them. Each story features a female character who embodies a specific aspect of the feminine personality; Highsmith allows this quality to unravel to the fullest extent possible, always to the detriment of those who live with or near the protagonists. The titles of the indivdual stories will give you an idea of the range of topics covered: "The Invalid, or, the Bedridden," "The Middle-Class Housewife," "The Breeder," "The Perfect Little Lady," "The Prude," "The Victim," etc. As damning as these stories are of their protagonists, in most cases the reader is likely to be somewhat in awe of the misguided heroines (as we are of the amoral Tom Ripley). Highsmith draws these characters with quick bold strokes using indelible ink. The reader is not given time to warm up to any of the characters and in the end they function more as archetypes than as full-blown fictional characters. Does Highsmith have nothing but contempt for her own sex? Possibly (think of Marge Sherwood in "The Talented Mr. Ripley"). Does she resist feminist rhetoric and politcal correctness? Certainly (you need only read "The Victim" to be convinced of this). Can she write in an honest and thought-provoking way? Absolutely! In some ways her attacks on middle-class convention and mores remind me of the stories of H.H. Munro (Saki) and Shirley Jackson--ironic and hard-hitting at the same time. Even when being her most brutal, she leaves room for pathos.
According to the dust jacket, Highsmith turned to writing short stories later in her life (beginning in the 70s). "Little Tales of Misogyny," interestingly, was very first published in German (1975) before being published in English (1977). My only wish is that with a book of this nature (one spanning the author's entire career) that the date of authorship was given for each story. (It helps to know, for instance, that "Little Tales of Misogyny" was written during the height of the 70s feminist movement.)
The book, by the way, is very handsomely typeset and bound, worthy of an author whose recognition and esteem seems to be growing since her death in 1995. Graham Greene's Preface is brief but insightful.
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