Patricia Highsmith underwent psychoanalysis in an effort "to regularize herself sexually" so she could marry Brandel. The analysis was brought to a stop by Highsmith, after which she ended her relationship with him. After ending her engagement to Marc Brandel, she had an affair with psychoanalyst Kathryn Hamill Cohen, the wife of British publisher Dennis Cohen and founder of Cresset Press, which later published "Strangers on a Train". To help pay for the twice-a-week therapy sessions, Highsmith had taken a sales job during Christmas rush season in the toy section of Bloomingdale's department store. Ironically, it was during this attempt to "cure"
Patricia Schartle Myrer In 1960 Schartle helped to revive the Gothic romance genre when she persuaded Eleanor Hibbert to write a new series of novels under the name Victoria Holt. In 1956 Schartle met novelist Mary Higgins Clark through a writer's workshop and became her literary agent for twenty years until her retirement. Schartle and Higgins Clark became such good friends that Higgins Clark named her fifth and last child "Patricia Mary" for their "winning combination". Patricia Highsmith appointed Patricia Schartle as her literary agent in 1959, when Schartle was with Constance Smith Associates. After Constance Smith Associates merged with McIntosh & Otis