The Blunderer
A Virago Modern Classic
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NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, A KIND OF MURDER, STARRING PATRICK WILSON AND JESSICA BIEL
By the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol and Strangers on a Train
'Almost unputdownable. Miss Highsmith writes about men like a spider writing about flies' OBSERVER
'History will place Highsmith at the top of the pyramid' A. N. WILSON, DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Peerlessly disturbing . . . bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night ' NEW YORKER
For two years, the young, successful and handsome Walter Stackhouse has been a faithful and supportive husband to his wife, Clara. She is distant and neurotic, and Walter finds himself harbouring gruesome fantasies about her demise. Then Clara's dead body turns up at the bottom of a cliff in a manner uncannily resembling the recent death of a woman named Helen Kimmel who was murdered by her husband. Under the intense scrutiny of the investigation he commits one mistake, then another, until - in true Highsmithian fashion - Walter finds his perfect life derailed. Now Walter is running from the obsessions of the murderer, and the suspicions of the lead cop, not to mention his own increasingly life-threatening blunders.
The Blunderer examines the dark obsessions that lie beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary people. With unerring psychological insight, Patricia Highsmith portrays characters who cross the precarious line separating fantasy from reality.
By the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol and Strangers on a Train
'Almost unputdownable. Miss Highsmith writes about men like a spider writing about flies' OBSERVER
'History will place Highsmith at the top of the pyramid' A. N. WILSON, DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Peerlessly disturbing . . . bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night ' NEW YORKER
For two years, the young, successful and handsome Walter Stackhouse has been a faithful and supportive husband to his wife, Clara. She is distant and neurotic, and Walter finds himself harbouring gruesome fantasies about her demise. Then Clara's dead body turns up at the bottom of a cliff in a manner uncannily resembling the recent death of a woman named Helen Kimmel who was murdered by her husband. Under the intense scrutiny of the investigation he commits one mistake, then another, until - in true Highsmithian fashion - Walter finds his perfect life derailed. Now Walter is running from the obsessions of the murderer, and the suspicions of the lead cop, not to mention his own increasingly life-threatening blunders.
The Blunderer examines the dark obsessions that lie beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary people. With unerring psychological insight, Patricia Highsmith portrays characters who cross the precarious line separating fantasy from reality.
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- Published: May 07 2015
- Pages: 304
- 195 x 130mm
- ISBN: 9780349004525
Press Reviews
A. N. Wilson
Daily TelegraphMy suspicion is that when the dust has settled and when the chronicle of twentieth century American literature comes to be written, history will place Highsmith at the top of the pyramid, as we should place Dostoevsky at the top of the Russian hierarchy of novelists
- Observer
Almost unputdownable. Miss Highsmith writes about men like a spider writing about flies
- New Yorker
Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing . . . bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night
Gore Vidal
One of the greatest modernist writers
Kirkus Reviews
A second suspense story has much of the malevolent intensity of Strangers On A Train and the whim of circumstance does much to victimize Walter Stackhouse, a lawyer.
- The New Yorker
Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing ....bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night
- The Observer
Almost unputdownable. Miss Highsmith writes about men like a spider writing about flies.
- Gore Vidal
One of the greatest modernist writers
A.N Wilson
Daily TelegraphMy suspicion is that when the dust has settled and when the chronicle of 20th-century American literature comes to be written, history will place Highsmith at the top of the pyramid, as we should place Dostoevsky at the top of the Russian hierarchy of novelists