Re: RARA-AVIS: Highsmith

Joshua B Lukin (jblukin@acsu.buffalo.edu)
Fri, 20 Feb 1998 03:14:31 -0500 (EST) Dear Mari,
I too have got to disagree with you on your suggestion that all the
Ripley novels are set in the Fifties: in _The_Boy_Who_Followed_Ripley_,
the title characters listen to side 2 of Lou Reed's 1972 album
_Transformer_. I love three of the Ripley books (haven't yet read
_Underground_) but think Highsmith has done better: _Deep_Water_,
_Cry_of_the_Owl_, and _Tremor_of_Forgery_ are all ruthlessly brilliant. I
think the ironies of Highsmith's Fifties work may qualify her, like Jim
Thompson, to have been a Black Humorist a few years before that category
was invented.
--Josh

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