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A veces, la normalidad esconde cosas terribles. Esto es lo que parece decirnos Patricia Highsmith en esta colección de relatos en los que nadie es lo que aparenta ser. Se dan cita en ellos un puñado de hombres y mujeres envueltos en un halo de absoluta normalidad, pero que, a veces, atrapados por las circunstancias, pueden llegar a comportarse de forma muy extraña, a veces con consecuencias irreversibles...Es el caso del jubilado Skipperton, que llevará demasiado lejos un conflicto vecinal, o el de Don, un hombre obsesionado con la correspondencia de su vecino, o incluso el del doctor McCullough, que acaricia la idea de asesinar a un viejo amigo al que en realidad detesta. También veremos hasta dónde puede llegar la angustia de Helen, que acaba de perder a su hija, o cuáles son los sentimientos de Ginnie al matar a alguien por primera vez, aunque sea en defensa propia. Todos ellos eran, aparentemente, personas normales y corrientes con las que cualquiera de nosotros podría sentirse identificado. En estos relatos, Patricia Highsmith saca a la luz el lado más oscuro y desconcertante de la mente humana y muestra cómo, muchas veces, la frontera que separa el bien del mal puede llegar a ser imperceptible.
313 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 2011
3 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Patricia Highsmith
489 books5,067 followersPatricia 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 New York in 1927 but returned to live with her grandmother for a year in 1933. Returning to her parents in New York, she attended public schools in New York City and later graduated from Barnard College in 1942.
Shortly after graduation her short story 'The Heroine' was published in the Harper's Bazaar magazine and it was selected as one of the 22 best stories that appeared in American magazines in 1945 and it won the O Henry award for short stories in 1946. She continued to write short stories, many of them comic book stories, and regularly earned herself a weekly $55 pay-check. During this period of her life she lived variously in New York and Mexico.
Her first suspense novel 'Strangers on a Train' published in 1950 was an immediate success with public and critics alike. The novel has been adapted for the screen three times, most notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.
In 1955 her anti-hero Tom Ripley appeared in the splendid 'The Talented Mr Ripley', a book that was awarded the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere as the best foreign mystery novel translated into French in 1957. This book, too, has been the subject of a number of film versions. Ripley appeared again in 'Ripley Under Ground' in 1970, in 'Ripley's Game' in 1974, 'The boy who Followed Ripley' in 1980 and in 'Ripley Under Water' in 1991.
Along with her acclaimed series about Ripley, she wrote 22 novels and eight short story collections plus many other short stories, often macabre, satirical or tinged with black humour. She also wrote one novel, non-mystery, under the name Claire Morgan , plus a work of non-fiction 'Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction' and a co-written book of children's verse, 'Miranda the Panda Is on the Veranda'.
She latterly lived in England and France and was more popular in England than in her native United States. Her novel 'Deep Water', 1957, was called by the Sunday Times one of the "most brilliant analyses of psychosis in America" and Julian Symons once wrote of her "Miss Highsmith is the writer who fuses character and plot most successfully ... the most important crime novelist at present in practice." In addition, Michael Dirda observed "Europeans honoured her as a psychological novelist, part of an existentialist tradition represented by her own favorite writers, in particular Dostoevsky, Conrad, Kafka, Gide, and Camus."
She died of leukemia in Locarno, Switzerland on 4 February 1995 and her last novel, 'Small g: a Summer Idyll', was published posthumously a month later.
Gerry Wolstenholme
July 2010
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 New York in 1927 but returned to live with her grandmother for a year in 1933. Returning to her parents in New York, she attended public schools in New York City and later graduated from Barnard College in 1942.
Shortly after graduation her short story 'The Heroine' was published in the Harper's Bazaar magazine and it was selected as one of the 22 best stories that appeared in American magazines in 1945 and it won the O Henry award for short stories in 1946. She continued to write short stories, many of them comic book stories, and regularly earned herself a weekly $55 pay-check. During this period of her life she lived variously in New York and Mexico.
Her first suspense novel 'Strangers on a Train' published in 1950 was an immediate success with public and critics alike. The novel has been adapted for the screen three times, most notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.
In 1955 her anti-hero Tom Ripley appeared in the splendid 'The Talented Mr Ripley', a book that was awarded the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere as the best foreign mystery novel translated into French in 1957. This book, too, has been the subject of a number of film versions. Ripley appeared again in 'Ripley Under Ground' in 1970, in 'Ripley's Game' in 1974, 'The boy who Followed Ripley' in 1980 and in 'Ripley Under Water' in 1991.
Along with her acclaimed series about Ripley, she wrote 22 novels and eight short story collections plus many other short stories, often macabre, satirical or tinged with black humour. She also wrote one novel, non-mystery, under the name Claire Morgan , plus a work of non-fiction 'Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction' and a co-written book of children's verse, 'Miranda the Panda Is on the Veranda'.
She latterly lived in England and France and was more popular in England than in her native United States. Her novel 'Deep Water', 1957, was called by the Sunday Times one of the "most brilliant analyses of psychosis in America" and Julian Symons once wrote of her "Miss Highsmith is the writer who fuses character and plot most successfully ... the most important crime novelist at present in practice." In addition, Michael Dirda observed "Europeans honoured her as a psychological novelist, part of an existentialist tradition represented by her own favorite writers, in particular Dostoevsky, Conrad, Kafka, Gide, and Camus."
She died of leukemia in Locarno, Switzerland on 4 February 1995 and her last novel, 'Small g: a Summer Idyll', was published posthumously a month later.
Gerry Wolstenholme
July 2010
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 25, 2025
5 Stars. If you commit suicide, does that mean you're dead? Is a living hell a type of suicide? Give some thought to these questions and then read Patricia Highsmith's A Curious Suicide. A good one. No question. There are three surprise punches in store for you. Highsmith was the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) and more than 100,000 GR stalwarts have reviewed it. Have you seen the Matt Damon version of the movie? Chilling. She also wrote Strangers on a Train (1950) which Hitchcock converted to the big screen. Dr. Steven McCullough is taking the train from Paris to Geneva and contemplating the murder of the man who married his first and probably only love. That would be Roger Fane now working for the American Embassy in Geneva. Almost two decades ago Fane stole Margaret away from McCullough with a nefarious little lie and married her, to McCullough's continuing resentment. His ire rises dramatically whenever he thinks of Fane, or what his life might have been had his wife been Margaret and not Lillian, the woman he did marry. Does he go through with it? Does he get caught? Does he pull-off a perfect murder? What a story. (De2024/Se2025)
September 2, 2011
EAsy to pick up and put down - entertaining - probably would have loved it more when I was 12 as it is gratuitously gruesome enough. The final story of the collection was quite funny. The characters throughout were a little stereotypically portraying middle-aged, middle-class Americans driven to extremes by boredom and the results and consequences of guilt and subsequent complexities.
December 18, 2019
No me ha gustado demasiado, es bastante predecible y nada sorprendente. Cuando lo terminas no te quedas pensando en él y es totalmente prescindible.
May 28, 2013
Primera vez que leo a Highsmith y la verdad que me dejó con ganas de más.
Libro que aproveché en la Feria del Libro este año; me gustó mucho la tapa así que me lo llevé sin pensarlo :P Son 12 relatos y no hay uno que no me haya enganchado de principio a fin, aunque el primero es definitivamente el mejor (hasta la propia autora lo tiene como su preferido).
Ya veré qué encuentro para volver a leer de esta señora :3
Libro que aproveché en la Feria del Libro este año; me gustó mucho la tapa así que me lo llevé sin pensarlo :P Son 12 relatos y no hay uno que no me haya enganchado de principio a fin, aunque el primero es definitivamente el mejor (hasta la propia autora lo tiene como su preferido).
Ya veré qué encuentro para volver a leer de esta señora :3
June 9, 2015
Un libro que me ha encantado desde el inicio. Es muy entretenida la manera de relatar los cuentos, además de mostrar que no es necesaria la policía para hacer justicia, puesto que la propia mente del criminal desencadena la culpa y la verguenza que en muchos casos lo lleva a su autodestrucción.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews