{"product_id":"devils-lusts-and-strange-desires-the-life-of-patricia-highsmith-9781448218226","title":"Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'My New Year's Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle \u003c\/b\u003e-\u003cb\u003e may they never give me peace' \u003c\/b\u003e- \u003cb\u003ePatricia Highsmith (New Year's Eve, 1947).\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMade famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, \u003ci\u003eThe Talented Mr Ripley \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eStrangers on a Train\u003c\/i\u003e, Patricia Highsmith is renowned as one of the most influential and celebrated modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality - by parts self-destructive and malicious - and her fiction, has been largely ignored by biographers in the past. As an openly homosexual writer, she wrote the seminal lesbian love story \u003ci\u003eCarol\u003c\/i\u003e for which she would be venerated, in modern times, as a radical exponent of the LGBTQ+ community. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAlas, her status as an LGBTQ+ icon is undermined by her excessive cruelty towards and exploitation of her friends and many lovers. In this biography, Richard Bradford brings his sharp and incisive style to one of the greatest and most controversial writers of the twentieth century. He considers Highsmith's bestsellers in the context of her troubled personal life; her alcoholism, licentious sex life, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and abundant self-loathing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRichard Bradford\u003c\/b\u003e is Research Professor in English at Ulster University and Visiting Professor at the University of Avignon. He has published more than thirty books, including eight well-reviewed trade biographies of writers. He has written for the \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e and has been interviewed on his work for various BBC Radio Arts programmes, as well as appearing on the Channel 4 series \u003ci\u003eWriters in their Own Words\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50453398913298,"sku":"9781448218226","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_29c4723f-3e50-4fc6-b31e-9a68b23ca9ef.jpg?v=1729845525","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/devils-lusts-and-strange-desires-the-life-of-patricia-highsmith-9781448218226","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}