Guardian 12th July 2003
‘This is the first biography … and it is a good one, stacking up oodles of anecdotes and interpretations.’
Daily Mail
‘Excellent and outstandingly readable … Brilliant and compelling’
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When the young journalist, Andrew Wilson, came to interview me for his book about Patricia Highsmith, I couldn't imagine how he would ever be able to capture the emotional volatility, the piercing intellectual focus, and the utter simplicity, almost transparency, of her powerful and often disturbing presence. Amazingly, Wilson has carried off this herculean task and given us a Highsmith almost as brilliantly complex and perplexingly ingenuous as the woman herself. Surely the next best thing to having actually known her is to read this superb biography.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As a long-time fan of Patricia Highsmith, who I have been reading since I was a teenager, I was looking forward to reading this book to find out about the author, of whom I knew very little other than the basic details of her life.
I wasn't disappointed. Beautiful Shadow interweaves the life of Highsmith and her books almost as one, and demonstrates how the two are so closely interlinked.
It's hard to believe from her books that Highsmith was most contended of individuals, and this proves to be the case.
Her story, which Wilson (although he never met her) has put together with the help of her journals and interviews with friends and contacts, is a masterful account of a tragic and tortured individual, who led a lonely life interrupted really only by the joy she gained from writing and painting.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As a long-term fan of Patricia Highsmith's dark prose I was delighted to read Andrew Wilson's accomplished biography. He has painted a full and fascinating picture of the author - her singular interests, upbringing, loves, influences and tragedies using her work itself, diaries and interviews with many of those closest to her. What emerges is a life and personality that is as ambiguous as her hero and favourite creation Tom Ripley. This is the perfect biography for anyone who has ever been simulataneously seduced and repelled by the character of Ripley. Furthermore, Wilson's writing style is both beautiful and compulsive - I couldn't put it down and I cannot imagine a better book on this great 20th century subject
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A good biography
I would echo the positive thoughts of other reviewers of this biography. I found it sensitive, compelling and eminently readable. Read more
Published on 26 Nov 2009 by Robert S. Fanshaw
the talented mr. wilson
This is a wonderful book, a real must-have for all Highsmith fans. Thoroughly researched, based on Highsmith personnal diaries and cahiers, this is a literary biography as they all... Read more
Published on 19 April 2009 by bagoas
good book
well-i disagree wholeheartedly with the person who slated andrew wilson(and no,i'm not related!)-i thought this book covered miss highsmiths life in depth and in an interesting... Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2009 by snailtank
stuart pe-win
I am not a big fan of literary biographies but I found this to be very readable and insightful. A "must by" for fans of her work.
Published on 22 Oct 2006 by Laclos
Weird, Unkind, and Dissolute
"She was a weird, unkind, dissolute person." This is how her goddaughter remembers Patricia Highsmith, and after reading Andrew Wilson's biography, I think so, too. Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2004 by takingadayoff
An exceptional talent!!!
Andrew Wilson is a wordsmith extraordinaire. His natural and unique talent for captivating the reader with quick paced and incisive narrative together with what seemed to be a... Read more
Published on 22 Aug 2003 by Sis Ofeel
The wait is over
This is probably the most insightful, compulsively readable, scholarly biography I’ve ever read. Read more
Published on 14 July 2003
Not bad!
Not a bad biography, actually quite captivating! Not worthy of five stars, with a few grammar errors (though not many), and not the best writing I've ever read; but not below... Read more
Published on 11 July 2003 by Kenneth Hand
Biography of the year - from Kate Crowndale
I've been waiting for this book for years and it's everything I wanted - and more. Much more. Highsmith was a highly secretive, enigmatic woman who never revealed herself while... Read more
Published on 30 Jun 2003
At Long Last
About the book: It’s a warts-and-all, cradle-to
grave portrayal of Pat Highsmith and I found it gripping from
start to finish. Read more
grave portrayal of Pat Highsmith and I found it gripping from
start to finish. Read more
Published on 17 Jun 2003
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All art is based on a desire to communicate, a love of beauty, a need to create order out of disorder,
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users
if you knew the kind of books a man wanted, you knew the man.44
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users
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