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Strangers on a Train
A major new reissue of the work of a classic noir novelist.
With the acclaim for The Talented Mr. Ripley, more film projects in production, and two biographies forthcoming, expatriate legend Patricia Highsmith would be shocked to see that she has finally arrived in her homeland. Throughout her career, Highsmith brought a keen literary eye and a genius for plumb...more
With the acclaim for The Talented Mr. Ripley, more film projects in production, and two biographies forthcoming, expatriate legend Patricia Highsmith would be shocked to see that she has finally arrived in her homeland. Throughout her career, Highsmith brought a keen literary eye and a genius for plumb...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
August 28th 2001
by W. W. Norton & Company
(first published 1950)
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Leslie
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Shelves:
fiction,
misanthropes,
read-in-2010,
wicked-queer,
you-re-my-obsession,
noir,
dazzling-undertows
This was another fun airport read because it is all about the perils of oversharing with strangers on public transportation. This is like literary B.O. for travelers, I'm sure. If only I had a Team Bruno shirt to don (and sully with literary b.o. pit stains!) in the air.
This book explores a nightmarish scenario: you wind up sitting next to a creep who'll ply you with scotch, force you into the confession zone and try to seduce you into a murder pact (e.g., you bump off my father and I'...more
This book explores a nightmarish scenario: you wind up sitting next to a creep who'll ply you with scotch, force you into the confession zone and try to seduce you into a murder pact (e.g., you bump off my father and I'...more
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Two strangers meet on a train, and they get to talking about what bothers them, and one comes up with an idea: You kill my annoying dad, and I'll kill your cheating wife. The strangers do not agree to the plan, but one day, the guy's wife is found murdered.
Patricia Highsmith does a good job creating and sustaining a creepy tension, which made me want to keep reading. But some of the plot twists seem implausible. I'd like to think that I would go directly to the police, instead of waiti...more
Patricia Highsmith does a good job creating and sustaining a creepy tension, which made me want to keep reading. But some of the plot twists seem implausible. I'd like to think that I would go directly to the police, instead of waiti...more
The story starts on the train where the main two characters met each other, Guy Haines, an architect, and Charley Bruno, a rich young man. The two strangers are finally together. While they were talking, Bruno shows his hate for his father. They were discussing about their lives then Bruno comes up with an idea. The idea was about committing a murder by killing a person they both hate. At first Guy does not take him seriously but he found out that his wife had been killed by Bruno. So now he mus...more
There is a familiarity to the start of this book for anybody who's seen the Hitchcock film, but after a while it becomes an entirely different story. As you probably know, aimless rich kid mummy's boy Bruno and architect Guy meet on a train, and in conversation mention various complaints, Guy's about his intractable ex-wife, Bruno's about his domineering father. Via various misunderstandings - wilful, on the part of the psychotic Bruno - they seem to have agreed to swap murders: it will be the p...more
I wasn't really quite sure what to expect of this book and I'm not sure what to say of it except that I enjoyed it a lot.
I know the story is very well known thanks to the Hitchcock film, but I've never seen it and I only knew of the premise that two strangers meet on, surprise, a train and agree to swap murders, each person killing the others enemy. In fact that isn't quite the premise so I had all my preconceptions wrong right from the start.
The suspense is the excellent sor...more
I know the story is very well known thanks to the Hitchcock film, but I've never seen it and I only knew of the premise that two strangers meet on, surprise, a train and agree to swap murders, each person killing the others enemy. In fact that isn't quite the premise so I had all my preconceptions wrong right from the start.
The suspense is the excellent sor...more
SPOILERS
Right, I must be missing something here because no other reviewers have mentioned the glaring plotholes in the book. The whole premise of the book is that the two characters meet, Guy and Bruno, Guy is the good one Bruno is the mad one, and they talk. Bruno finds out Guy is getting divorced and hates his ex-wife. We learn that Bruno is bonkers, a boozer, a bit of an adolescent despite being mid 20s, is in love with his mother - he admires his mother's legs at one point, thinki...more
Right, I must be missing something here because no other reviewers have mentioned the glaring plotholes in the book. The whole premise of the book is that the two characters meet, Guy and Bruno, Guy is the good one Bruno is the mad one, and they talk. Bruno finds out Guy is getting divorced and hates his ex-wife. We learn that Bruno is bonkers, a boozer, a bit of an adolescent despite being mid 20s, is in love with his mother - he admires his mother's legs at one point, thinki...more
I was surprised to find out how different the original novel is from the excellent Hitchcock film. Hitchcock went for suspense and thrills which necessitated substantial changes to the original story. In Highsmith's equally excellent novel, Bruno remains the quintessential rich spoiled psychopath yet Guy is a much more complex character. He is still naive but more intelligent (he is an architect in the novel and not a tennis bum). He is also not as morally strict and this is where the tension ar...more
Strangers On a Train by Patricia Highsmith is a book that’s far too often neglected today. In fact, it’s so neglected that many people don’t even know it is a book. For this, of course, I blame Alfred Hitchcock - more or less. His film adaptation was so brilliantly done (though in some significant ways, very different from the book) that people interested in Strangers On a Train simply watch the film rather than read the book. I should know. I was once one of them. The book is so good, however, ...more
The premise is fascinating, but something about the way this was written made it hard for me to get into. Two gentleman meet on a train. One, Guy, latches on to the other and after a bit of conversation learns that he wants to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. Guy suggests that since he too has someone he would like to get rid of (his father) the perfect solution would be for each to murder the others nemesis--since each woud have no obvious motive there would be no way they would be s...more
Fellow travelers beware of kindly strangers who appear in rust-brown suits and ties of green silk (hand-painted with orange-colored palm trees) and wish to become acquainted with you. For Patricia Highsmith's first novel, Charles Anthony Bruno is a young man with bad taste and worse ambitions for the upright fellow train passenger Guy Haines. Do not be mislead by the extraordinary Hitchcock film into believing that you know this tale of murder for the story and characters portrayed in the origin...more
A nice and harrowing psychological thriller. I'll always remember Highsmith's description of a pimple on Bruno's face early on in the story.
Why is it so much easier to unburden yourself to a stranger? Is it that awareness of anonymity? Is it the knowledge that this person has no history, no preconceived notions upon which you might be judged? Whatever the underlying reason, I’ve always found this to be true. I’m pretty sure that the entire realm of internet communication is so prevalent in part because of this truth. In this unforgettable work, Patricia Highsmith examines the sinister outcome of a chance meeting, and a momentar...more
This psychological thriller, a modern classic of suspense, begins and proceeds for the first third of the story much like the more famous Hitchcock film which was adapted from it. Two young men meet by chance on a train; the younger man, Charles Bruno, mentally unbalanced with a pathological hatred of his wealthy father, proposes to his older companion, Guy Haines, a promising young architect with a troublesome and unfaithful wife he is trying to divorce, that they solve each other's difficulti...more
The basis for the movie of the same name, this book is a perfect example of Highsmith's stock in trade - not-very-bloody violence that is just like the other activities of her characters. Through extensive interior dialogues, we become part of her characters' worlds. When she's at her best, as in the Ripley books, we almost collude with Tom as he dispatches people with a logic that is hard to refute.
A warning......if you have seen the Hitchcock film with Robert Walker and Farley Granger, don't expect the book to follow the same storyline. The novel has the basic premise of "exchanging murders" but goes in an entirely different direction with a much darker denouement. The film always struck me as having some plot holes regarding the actions of the Guy Haines character...........the book, with a different focus, fills in those inconsistencies.
It is a very disturbing and twiste...more
It is a very disturbing and twiste...more
Whew. Midway through this novel I realized I had continued reading because of a hideous compulsion to exorcise its proceedings from my mind. Reading for pleasure or entertainment was no longer a component to the experience. I couldn't stop reading because I would allow neither the story nor the characters to become completely swallowed by the moral abyss without any attempt by the writer to illuminate their struggles in a "meaningful" way, but that motivation was driven more by sick fa...more
The Alfred Hitchcock film of this book more or less takes the main premise and the first major plot turn...
...and leaves everything else behind in the book.
This very very creepy book. Sometimes I wonder why I'm drawn to novels about the underbelly of human nature. Probably because I have a fascination with the ways a mind can run off-course. Or, let's say a need to understand that.
'Strangers...' is not as creepy as, say, 'In Cold Blood' - which I returned to ...more
...and leaves everything else behind in the book.
This very very creepy book. Sometimes I wonder why I'm drawn to novels about the underbelly of human nature. Probably because I have a fascination with the ways a mind can run off-course. Or, let's say a need to understand that.
'Strangers...' is not as creepy as, say, 'In Cold Blood' - which I returned to ...more
An interesting idea - two men meet on a train and discover that they each have someone in their lives whom they want dead. They discuss the possibility of swapping murders, thus leaving no trace of themselves at the scene and allowing each of them to constuct an alibi. Ingenious.
But the real power of this book lies in Highsmith's exploration of a murderer's guilt. The minute but constant decay of a tortured psyche. The impact that the wrong decision can have on one man's life as it ...more
But the real power of this book lies in Highsmith's exploration of a murderer's guilt. The minute but constant decay of a tortured psyche. The impact that the wrong decision can have on one man's life as it ...more
Highsmith's fine novel is considerably darker than Hitchcock's equally fine movie adaptation. It reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe's short story, "William Wilson", the man with a "double". That's the premise of Highsmith's novel as well - a chance meeting on a train leads a successful architect to discover his own double, an alcoholic murderer. He is pulled into the murderer's orbit and begins to realize that he is capable of anything as well, even murder.
...more
...more
I've been hearing about Patricia Highsmith from greats like Chandler for years and years, but I've never read anything of hers until now.
Oh. My. God. She was an amazing writer! Impossibly vivid and detailed scenes, with characters who all but get off the page and carry on their conversations right there in your lap.
And the premise? Two strangers agree to commit each other's murders so they both have perfect alibis?
Has there ever been a better mystery premise o...more
Oh. My. God. She was an amazing writer! Impossibly vivid and detailed scenes, with characters who all but get off the page and carry on their conversations right there in your lap.
And the premise? Two strangers agree to commit each other's murders so they both have perfect alibis?
Has there ever been a better mystery premise o...more
I read this after seeing the little blurb on it during the Guardian's 1000 Books You Should Read series, and being intrigued by the idea - two men meet on a train, and agree to complete each other's murders.
Of course, it's not really like that at all - it is Bruno who becomes obsessed with the idea. The other main on the train, Guy, doesn't believe he's agreed to such a scheme until Bruno makes it all more and more inevitable.
Watching Guy slowly succumb to Bruno's plan a...more
Of course, it's not really like that at all - it is Bruno who becomes obsessed with the idea. The other main on the train, Guy, doesn't believe he's agreed to such a scheme until Bruno makes it all more and more inevitable.
Watching Guy slowly succumb to Bruno's plan a...more
Patricia Highsmith's first novel, in which she manages to bring to the table all of the painstaking characterisation and psychological minutae of her later books, while at the same time failing to create any of the tension.
I don't know if it's fair to call Strangers On A Train a thriller - really, it's more of a crime melodrama. The two characters meet, one seemingly sane while the other is obviously unhinged. Rich, petulant, Dostoevskian Charlie Bruno meets architect Guy Haines and...more
I don't know if it's fair to call Strangers On A Train a thriller - really, it's more of a crime melodrama. The two characters meet, one seemingly sane while the other is obviously unhinged. Rich, petulant, Dostoevskian Charlie Bruno meets architect Guy Haines and...more
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Oh, it was a fine, perfectly entertaining (for the most part) psychological thriller. It's no mean feat that Bruno was by far the most fleshed out and sympathetic character in this book. The theme--that every moon has a dark side, every ego a complementary opposite, every reason an argument against it, and yes, dare I say it, every rose its thorn (at least this author seems to have retained her original hair)--has been done to death, and undeath, and back to death again, but to be fair, maybe th...more
File this one under: The Books ISN'T Always Better Than the Movie. Though in some ways more "uncompromising" than the Hitchcock film, it is also more "meandering" and "boring." Hitchcock tightened the action, made the characters more interesting and their motivations more clear. Also **spoiler** despite the fact that Guy ends up killing Bruno's father in the book, where Hitchcock goes for the more "Hollywood" ending of having him avoid it, in some ways, Hi...more
This was a different kind of mystery compared to the usual detective novels. And even though I love those, this was quite enjoyable, too.
Rather than building mystery, this novel builds upon the mystery happening. It's absolutely incredible to see the very realistic portrayals of suffering souls, who obviously can't be unaffected by murder. And Charles Bruno, for all his psychopathic behavior, is one of the most tragic characters you're likely to encounter.
Very recommendable, ...more
Rather than building mystery, this novel builds upon the mystery happening. It's absolutely incredible to see the very realistic portrayals of suffering souls, who obviously can't be unaffected by murder. And Charles Bruno, for all his psychopathic behavior, is one of the most tragic characters you're likely to encounter.
Very recommendable, ...more
'Strangers on a Train' is a fascinating premise for a thriller, but ultimately I found the writing to really bog down the premise itself.
Bruno Anthony is a really interesting character, as is Haines, but I'd have to say the movie does the concept a lot more justice. I found the book to have a lot of unnecessary pages on what they were eating, what they thought of this and that, and ultimately took away the suspense for me.
That being said, I highly recommend checkin...more
This book is the basis for the Hitchcock film of the same name and it is because of the film that I read the book. As is usual for a book-to-movie exercise, there are major changes in the movie.
The book is noir fiction that dates to that era but it still draws one in and the author makes some larger points, i.e., how through pure luck of circumstance we can get drawn into situations that we would have never entered of our own volition.
The book also obliquely hints at a h...more
The book is noir fiction that dates to that era but it still draws one in and the author makes some larger points, i.e., how through pure luck of circumstance we can get drawn into situations that we would have never entered of our own volition.
The book also obliquely hints at a h...more
You just know from the beginning of this book that things won't go well, but you aren't exactly sure what will happen or when. That's what makes this book so hard to put down. Definitely an interesting read and commentary on how far a person can be pushed. The only part of the book that didn't feel right was the ending, it seemed weak given the rest of the story.
On a side note, I understand that they're remaking the movie - Hitchcock originally based his movie off this book, a...more
On a side note, I understand that they're remaking the movie - Hitchcock originally based his movie off this book, a...more
Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith, A. Narrated by Bronson Pinchot, Produced by Blackstone Audio, downloaded from audible.com.
Strangers on a Train is contained in a collection of her short stories and two novels entitled: Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories.
Strangers on a Train is a psychological mystery with no doubts as to who committed the murders, but a great deal of psychological complexity regarding the consequences to both murderers. ...more
Strangers on a Train is contained in a collection of her short stories and two novels entitled: Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories.
Strangers on a Train is a psychological mystery with no doubts as to who committed the murders, but a great deal of psychological complexity regarding the consequences to both murderers. ...more
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Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist who is known mainly for her psychological crime thrillers which have led to more than two dozen film adaptations over the years.
She lived with her grandmother, mother and later step-father (her mother divorced her natural father six months before 'Patsy' was born and married Stanley Highsmith) in Fort Worth before moving with her parents to ...more
More about Patricia Highsmith...
She lived with her grandmother, mother and later step-father (her mother divorced her natural father six months before 'Patsy' was born and married Stanley Highsmith) in Fort Worth before moving with her parents to ...more
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“How easy it was to lie when one had to lie!”
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“I know you have it in you, Guy," Anne said suddenly at the end of a silence, "the capacity to be terribly happy.”
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