Patricia Highsmith Comics. When Highsmith wrote the psychological thriller novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1955), one of the title character's first victims is a comic-book artist named Reddington: "Tom had a hunch about Reddington. He was a comic-book artist. He probably didn't know whether he was coming or going." Highsmith's first novel, "Strangers on a Train", proved modestly successful upon publication in 1950, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 film adaptation of the novel enhanced her reputation. Highsmith's second novel, "The Price of Salt", was published in 1952 under the "nom de plume" Claire Morgan. Highsmith mined her personal life for the novel's content.
Carol M. Highsmith the Year. Highsmith decided to apply the $1,000 prize award toward a trip to the Soviet Union. A longtime client gave her an inexpensive Pentax K1000, a small, manual-focus single-lens reflex camera that shoots 35-millimeter film. Highsmith snapped photographs from Kiev to eastern Siberia. Back in the States working as a senior account executive in broadcasting, Highsmith was determined to further explore photography while completing an undergraduate degree. She studied photography at American University under Professor Anne Zelle and took night-school photography classes, taught by photographer Frank DiPerna, at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. DiPerna assigned each class