Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer best known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novels and numerous short stories throughout her career spanning nearly five decades, and her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her writing derived influence from existentialist literature, and questioned notions of identity and popular morality. She was dubbed "the poet of apprehension" by novelist Graham Greene. Her first novel, "Strangers on a Train", has been adapted for
Carol M. Highsmith that ... there is clearly a tendency to fantasize,' says Swain. 'Eighteen percent actually do it.'" Asked her personal motto by the "Washington Times" in 1989 in one of the newspaper's periodic profile of "doers," Highsmith replied, "A little hard work never hurt anyone." Highsmith landed a contract to photograph another building on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a turreted building called Sears House, where Mathew Brady had operated the studios in which he and his assistants photographed Washington luminaries during and after the Civil War. Her work at Sears House would lead to Highsmith's first photographic honor, a 1985 Award