Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the scant critical material on Highsmith already in existence, then outline the methodology. It explores the concept of the waiting room' that it contend encapsulates the void' of Highsmith's writing. The book considers two of what to label Highsmith's texts of exile'. The first of these, The Tremor of Forgery, is set in Tunisia; the second text, Edith's Diary, examines a different type of exile, that of femininity. The book considers the Ripley novels separately from Highsmith's other work. She was especially interested in human responses to murder and the various strategies of avoidance that the mind deploys to fend off anxiety that, as her texts painfully show, fail to work. Russell Harrison's Patricia Highsmith, published in 1997 as part of Twayne's United States Authors Series', was the only book available on her.