Patricia Highsmith was born Mary Patricia Plangman in Fort Worth, Texas, on January 19, 1921. Her parents, both commercial artists, separated before she was born, and she did not meet her father until she was twelve. She later took her stepfather’s surname. Highsmith was raised by her maternal grandmother for several years until her mother remarried. Her relationship with her mother, who admitted to trying to abort her by swallowing turpentine, remained troubled, and she ended her relationship with her father after he tried to seduce her during their first meeting. The tensions she experienced in her family during her childhood were recreated in many of her stories and novels. Highsmith’s grandmother taught her to read when she was two, and by the age of eight, Highsmith was interested in Karl Menninger’s The Human Mind, especially the parts that focused on mental...