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Patricia Highsmith (19 January 1921 – 4 February 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her first novel, ''Strangers on a Train'', has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. In addition to her series of four novels with Tom Ripley as protagonist, she wrote 18 additional novels and many short stories. Michael Dirda observed, "Europeans honored her as a psychological novelist, part of an existentialist tradition represented by her own favorite writers, in particular Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Kafka, Gide, and Camus."〔Dirda (2009)〕 ==Early life== Highsmith was born Mary Patricia Plangman in Fort Worth, Texas. She was the only child of artists Jay Bernard Plangman (1889–1975), who was of German descent,〔Castle (2003)〕 and his wife, Mary Plangman (''née'' Coates; 13 September 1895 – 12 March 1991). The couple divorced ten days before their daughter's birth.〔Schenkar (2008) 〕 In 1927, Highsmith, her mother and her adoptive stepfather, artist Stanley Highsmith, whom her mother had married in 1924, moved to New York City.〔 When she was 12 years old, Highsmith was sent to Fort Worth and lived with her grandmother for a year. She called this the "saddest year" of her life and felt "abandoned" by her mother. She returned to New York to continue living with her mother and stepfather, primarily in Manhattan, but also lived in Astoria, Queens. According to Highsmith, her mother once told her that she had tried to abort her by drinking turpentine, although a biography of Highsmith indicates Jay Plangman tried to persuade his wife to have the abortion but she refused.〔 Highsmith never resolved this love–hate relationship, which reportedly haunted her for the rest of her life, and which she fictionalized in her short story "The Terrapin", about a young boy who stabs his mother to death.〔〔Cohen (2010)〕 Highsmith's mother predeceased her by four years, dying at the age of 95. Highsmith's grandmother taught her to read at an early age, and Highsmith made good use of her grandmother's extensive library. At the age of nine, she found a resemblance to her own imaginative life in the case histories of ''The Human Mind'' by Karl Menninger, a popularizer of Freudian analysis.〔 In 1942, Highsmith graduated from Barnard College, where she studied English composition, playwriting, and the short story.〔 After graduating from college, she applied without success for work at such magazines as ''Harper's Bazaar'', ''Vogue'', ''The New Yorker'', ''Mademoiselle'', and ''Good Housekeeping'', offering "impressive" recommendations from "highly placed" professionals.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Patricia Highsmith」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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