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 the North Carolina Press Association. Carol Highsmith (then McKinney) graduated from Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis in 1964, then spent a year in college at the now-defunct Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa. In a 2013 profile of Highsmith, the Minnehaha Academy alumni magazine, the "Arrow," quoted Highsmith: At Parsons College, Carol McKinney met Mark Highsmith, an artist from Queens, N.Y., who soon graduated and enlisted in the Army. The couple married in Minneapolis, then moved to Columbus, Georgia, where Mark Highsmith was stationed at Fort Benning. Upon his deployment to Vietnam in 1966, Carol Highsmith moved to Queens, N.Y., after securing