Sometimes a birthday present doesn’t quite suit. In the early 1990s I bought a copy of Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith for my mum. But it didn’t take.
“You have it dear,” she said after starting it, then abandoning it. “It’s not really my cup of tea.”
It’s a lovely hardback with an image of something tied in a bag under water on the cover. A body.
It was my induction into the world of Tom Ripley, Highsmith’s amoral but fascinating protagonist. I was immediately hooked and have since read quite a bit by Highsmith, including all her Ripley books.
The new Netflix series Ripley should inspire us all to read more Highsmith. Her novels are all quirky, dark and compelling and her short stories are simply delicious. More than a decade ago I received a book for review – Nothing That Meets The Eye: The Uncollected Stories by Patricia Highsmith.
This is a great introduction to her oeuvre. It’s a big book and I would treat myself to a story each night. There are all the twists of Roald Dahl and the ease of Somerset Maugham in her style.
Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, is a classic and it spawned an equally classic 1951 film, produced and directed by none other than the great Alfred Hitchcock, the perfect man for the job. The screenplay was by Raymond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde and it starred Farley Granger, Ruth Roman and Robert Walker.
More cinematic treasure was to be found in her Ripley books. The five novels in which he appears – The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water (the book my mum rejected) were published between 1955 and 1991.
The protagonist, Tom Ripley, is a career criminal, con artist and serial killer who always gets away with his crimes. In every novel, he comes perilously close to getting caught or killed, but ultimately escapes danger.
Is it wrong to say that I love Ripley? Some years ago, I even wrote a kind of Ripley story myself and set it in the Brisbane suburb of Wilston, of all places, which is where we lived at the time.
It’s called Incident in Wilston and involves a criminal living in Wilston who has to dispose of a body. It appeared in the 2014 anthology Black Beacon’s Subtropical Suspense edited by Cameron Trost.
It’s a tribute to Ripley and that is rather obvious. I call my lead character Tom Ridley as a nod to Ripley.
We recently watched the new Netflix series Ripley, based on Highsmith’s first Ripley book, and it is just so good. Steven Zaillian’s eight-episode series is, according to The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw: “sumptuous and instantly addictive”.
“Starring the incomparable Andrew Scott as the charmer aesthete and serial killer … it’s a seven-star luxury hotel of a TV show in arthouse black and white,” wrote Bradshaw.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s a slow burn, excruciating at times. And if you know the story it’s even more excruciating because you know what’s coming and it’s never good.
The Italian settings are magnificent and it’s a feast for any Highsmith fan. I hope there may be a follow up because Zaillian has only really scratched the surface.
Highsmith’s first three Ripley novels have been adapted into films. The Talented Mr. Ripley was filmed as Purple Noon (Plein Soleil) in 1960, starring Alain Delon as Ripley, and under the original title in 1999 starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett. That film was masterfully directed by Anthony Minghella.
Ripley Under Ground was adapted into a 2005 film, starring Barry Pepper. Ripley’s Game was filmed in 1977 as The American Friend starring Dennis Hopper and under its original title in 2002, starring John Malkovich, who is wonderfully creepy. That’s a cracker and it also stars one of my favourite actors, Dougray Scott.
The Australian playwright Joanna Murray Smith’s play Switzerland, a Sydney Theatre Company production that came to Queensland Theatre in 2016, was a fascinating window into the world of Patricia Highsmith. (It’s called Switzerland because this is where the American author spent the last 14 years of her life.)
Queensland actor Andrea Moore starred as the author and she was perfect in the role. In the play Ripley comes to life and visits Highsmith, planning to kill her. It was delicious stuff and, frankly, deserves a revival, particularly now that a whole new generation is switching on to Ripley, a character we shouldn’t really like. But we do.
Film critic Sam Jordison wrote, again in The Guardian, that “”it is near impossible, I would say, not to root for Tom Ripley. Not to like him. Not, on some level, to want him to win. Patricia Highsmith does a fine job of ensuring he wheedles his way into our sympathies”.
In the Netflix series Andrew Scott’s portrayal of Ripley is utterly brilliant. As critic Peter Bradshaw says, Zaillian’s adaptation give us “much more of Ripley’s essential loneliness and miserable vulnerability”.
That allows us to empathise with him and to want him to succeed, as wrong as that is. And he does succeed.
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If you are just starting out on your Ripley journey and haven’t read the novels yet, you have a treat in store.
But there is so much more to Highsmith. Her books are mostly still in print, so dive into the murky waters of her world. But be careful, because you never know what lurks beneath.
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