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Patricia Highsmith’s Uncommon Empathy for Animals
“The Animal-Lover’s Book of Beastly Murder” is a perfect book of short stories for vegans who enjoy a dark thrill
Patricia Highsmith, the novelist best known for creating the diabolically charming character Tom Ripley, was a notorious misanthrope. An editor once characterized her as “a horrible human being” and a fellow writer described her as “an excellent hater.” But, at the very least, she loved animals. When she came across spiders inside the house, she would carefully carry them to the garden outside. She had a particular affection for snails, and kept some 300 of them as pets when she lived in a cottage in Suffolk, as well as for cats, with whom she was often photographed. Her feline relationships, a biographer wrote, were “often counted as her longest and most successful emotional connection.”
Once, when her agent complained that there was nobody likable in her books, Highsmith responded, “Perhaps it is because I don’t like anyone. My last books may be about animals.”
This affinity for non-human life is the foundation of Highsmith’s collection of short stories, The Animal-Lover’s Book of Beastly Murder. The tales blend elements of fable, morality tale, and revenge fantasy, but for the most part they all center the lives and…
