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 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