Mermaids on the Golf Course: Stories - Softcover

Highsmith, Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393324567 ISBN 13: 9780393324563

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003

Synopsis

The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with this work that reveals the chilling reality behind the idyllic facade of American suburban life.

The stories collected in Mermaids on the Golf Course are among Highsmith's most mature, psychologically penetrating works. As in the title story, in which a man's brush with death endows his everyday desires with tragic consequences, the warm familiarities of middle-class life become the eerie setting for Highsmith's chilling portrayals of violence, secrecy, and madness.

About this title

About the Author:

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt, The Blunderer and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.

From Publishers Weekly:

Fans of Highsmith ( Strangers on a Train , Found in the Street ) will welcome this collection; for others it may be an acquired taste. Among the 11 short stories, "The Stuff of Madness" tells of a woman who displays her dead stuffed pets in the garden, and of her husband's final revolt. "A Clock Ticks at Christmas" is about the breakup of the marriage between a woman born rich and a man who had to make his money, and their opposite reactions to a theft by two urchins she befriends. In "The Button," a man displaces his rage at his Mongoloid son by killing a stranger. In the title story, a government official injured in an assassination attempt on the President suffers a personality change he is unaware of, although everyone else notices his altered behavior. The art student visiting Mexico in "A Shot from Nowhere" sees a young boy killed but can get no one to do anything about it; he is arrested and thrown out of the country with no explanation. More mood pieces and psychological studies than nicely plotted stories, these tales are depressing and downbeat, albeit very well written. ( October
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0393324567
• ISBN 13: 9780393324563
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240