Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith [Paperback]

‘A fascinating, beautifully balanced and meticulously researched biography’

'A fascinating, beautifully balanced and meticulously researched biography, bringing us as close to understanding Highsmith as we are ever likely to get' Sunday Telegraph 'Wilson has delved with extraordinary diligence, and everything he has unearthed is remarkable' Mail on Sunday 'Excellent and outstandingly readable ... Brilliant and compelling' Daily Mail 'An exemplary biography of a tortured, difficult and outstandingly gifted human being' Sunday Times

‘An exemplary biography … Wilson has fashioned a biography that does complete justice to her uneasy spirit’

‘Wilson has chosen a wonderful subject and written an excellent book … Brilliant’

‘Wilson has delved with extraordinary diligence, and everything he has unearthed is remarkable’

Patricia Highsmith - author of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY - had more than her fair share of secrets. During her life, she felt uncomfortable about discussing the source of her fiction and refused to answer questions about her private life. Yet after her death in February 1995, Highsmith left behind a vast archive of personal documents - diaries, notebooks and letters - which detail the links between her life and her work. Drawing on these intimate papers, together with material gleaned from her closest friends and lovers, Andrew Wilson has written the first biography of an author described by Graham Greene as the 'poet of apprehension'. Wilson illuminates the dark corners of Highsmith's life, casts light on mysteries of the creative process and reveals the secrets that the writer chose to keep hidden until after her death.

Throughout her life she would find herself drawn to a number of women whom she could use as muses, women who have here talked about Highsmith for the first time. Yet the fantasy love affair – a relationship conducted within the confines of the imagination – was always more alluring than the reality and as a result the only lasting happiness Highsmith experienced came through her work.

Drawing on Highsmith’s voluminous personal papers, and the testimonies of her closest friends, Andrew Wilson has written the first biography of the author described by Graham Greene as ‘the poet of apprehension’ and by Gore Vidal as ‘one of our greatest modernist writers’. In this biography he illuminates the dark corners of Highsmith’s life, casts light on the mysteries of the creative process and reveals the secrets that the writer chose to keep hidden until after her death. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Andrew Wilson is a journalist who has written for most of Britain's national newspapers, including the DAILY TELEGRAPH, the GUARDIAN, the INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY and the DAILY MAIL. This is his first book.