Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Blake Morrison

Critical Essay by Blake Morrison

Critics have been unsure of where to place Patricia Highsmith's work, and it's easy to see why. To call her a 'crime writer' sounds limiting, even patronising, since, like Chabrol, Highsmith is less interested in the mechanics of crimes than in the psychology behind them. On the other hand you can hardly overlook the fact that most of her fictions end up with blood on their hands: she may command a high-art following, but there are those who read her to see how ingeniously and brutally she'll dispose of her characters. Very few of the 12 stories in Slowly, Slowly in the Wind slot neatly into a crime-suspense category, but there's no slackening of invention when it comes to the crunch. Vines sprouting out of a pond drag their victims underwater; a farmer's corpse is hung up as a scarecrow; Madame Thibault's Waxworks Museum acquires three additional exhibits …

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