Patricia Highsmith "Mademoiselle", "Good Housekeeping", "Time", "Fortune", and "The New Yorker". Based on the recommendation from Truman Capote, Highsmith was accepted by the Yaddo artist's retreat during the summer of 1948, where she worked on her first novel, "Strangers on a Train". Highsmith endured cycles of depression, some of them deep, throughout her life. Despite literary success, she wrote in her diary of January 1970: "[I] am now cynical, fairly rich ... lonely, depressed, and totally pessimistic." Over the years, Highsmith suffered from female hormone deficiency, anorexia nervosa, chronic anemia, Buerger's disease, and lung cancer. According to her biographer Andrew Wilson, Highsmith's
Carol M. Highsmith member to photograph a model in an unusual location in metropolitan Washington. Highsmith chose the crumbling Willard Hotel, which had been closed since 1968. Her mostly black-and-white photos taken there reaffirmed her eye for detail and solidified her interest in photographic art. It was at the Willard that Highsmith first learned of Frances Benjamin Johnston, and where she began her photography career. The once-opulent hotel was deserted, stripped of its furnishings and fixtures, and slated for demolition. "[The Willard's] main tenant was a bum who was setting fires on the sixth floor," Highsmith told the "New York Times" when the