BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, CAROL AND STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
‘Highsmith writes about men like a spider writing about flies’ OBSERVER
‘For eliciting the menace that lurks in familiar surroundings, there’s no one like Patricia Highsmith’ TIME
‘The Glass Cell has lost little of its disturbing power . . . Highsmith was a genuine one-off’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
Based on a true story, The Glass Cell is Highsmith’s deeply disturbing fictionalisation of everything she learned. Falsely convicted of fraud, the easy-going but naive Philip Carter is sent to prison. Despite his devotion to Hazel, his wife, and the support of David Sullivan, a lawyer and friend who tries to avenge the injustice done to him, Carter endures six lonely and drug-ravaged years. Upon his release, Carter is a much more discerning, suspicious, and violent man. His beautiful wife is waiting for him. He has never had any reason to doubt her. For those around him, earning back his trust can mean the difference between life and death.
‘Highsmith writes about men like a spider writing about flies’ OBSERVER
‘For eliciting the menace that lurks in familiar surroundings, there’s no one like Patricia Highsmith’ TIME
‘The Glass Cell has lost little of its disturbing power . . . Highsmith was a genuine one-off’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
Based on a true story, The Glass Cell is Highsmith’s deeply disturbing fictionalisation of everything she learned. Falsely convicted of fraud, the easy-going but naive Philip Carter is sent to prison. Despite his devotion to Hazel, his wife, and the support of David Sullivan, a lawyer and friend who tries to avenge the injustice done to him, Carter endures six lonely and drug-ravaged years. Upon his release, Carter is a much more discerning, suspicious, and violent man. His beautiful wife is waiting for him. He has never had any reason to doubt her. For those around him, earning back his trust can mean the difference between life and death.
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Reviews
Bears Highsmith's unique, unsurpassed mixture of unsettling psychological insights, moods of tension and malice, and an ending of brilliant ambiguity
There's more to Patricia Highsmith than Ripley
My suspicion is that when the dust has settled and when the chronicle of twentieth century American literature comes to be written, history will place Highsmith at the top of the pyramid, as we should place Dostoevsky at the top of the Russian hierarchy of novelists
For eliciting the menace that lurks in familiar surroundings, there's no one like Patricia Highsmith
[Highsmith's] characters are irrational, and they leap to life in their very lack of reason; suddenly we realize how unbelievably rational most fictional characters are. . . . Highsmith is the poet of apprehension rather than fear
Highsmith writes about men like a spider writing about flies
