Patricia Highsmith and her ashes were interred in its columbarium. She left her estate, worth an estimated $3 million, and the promise of any future royalties to the Yaddo colony, where she spent two months in 1948 writing the draft of "Strangers on a Train". Highsmith bequeathed her literary estate to the Swiss Literary Archives at the Swiss National Library in Bern, Switzerland. Her Swiss publisher, Diogenes Verlag, was appointed literary executor of the estate. Highsmith was a resolute atheist. Although she considered herself a liberal, and in her school years had gotten along with Black students, in later years she became
The Two Faces of January The Two Faces of January The Two Faces of January (1964) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith. Its title alludes to the two faces of the Roman god Janus, after whom the month of January was named. Biographer Andrew Wilson, in his 2003 publication "Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith" claims the title is 'appropriate for the janus-faced, flux-like nature of her protagonists'. Chester MacFarland is an alcoholic con artist traveling in Greece with his young wife, Colette. McFarland is wanted by the police back in the U.S. for running a Ponzi scheme. In Athens, a Greek