THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY

Oct 16, 2001 - © Barbara Ann Lyons

Patricia Highsmith created a disturbing crime novel in the tale of a "Ted Bundy" type murderer.

The story is about Richard (Dickie) Greenleaf, heir to a family fortune, who is living the high life in Italy with girlfriend Marge, and close friend, Freddie. His father, concerned about his irresponsibility hires Tom Ripley, who he mistakes as an old friend of Richard's.

Ripley, nothing more than a drifter and ambitious con man falls into the perfect scam. Greenleaf Sr. bankrolls him to go to Italy and bring his errant son to his senses.

Ripley makes the contact, forms a friendship, and as he becomes comfortable in the situation, decides he deserves Dickie's life more than Dickie. He kills him on a boat ride and dumps him into the ocean. Assuming the role of both himself and Dickie, he pulls off the perfect murder and goes on to kill again. All the while, The Talented Mr. Ripley portrays such an attractive, clean cut, good boy image (Ted Bundy) that not one of his associations suspects him of the evil that drives him.

Highsmith has created a chilling, charming, sociopath, troubling because of the way it draws the reader into his evil doing almost willingly. There is no remorse in this fictionalized serial killer so comparable to today's sociopaths. She successfully conveys the menacing, volatile, dangerous, Ripley personna - the mental instability lying just below his serene exterior. Her work was criticized by some as "containing a disturbing moral tone".

The Talented Mr. Ripley is the first of five "Ripley" novels: 2. Ripley Underground, 3. Ripley's Game, 4. The Boy Who Followed Ripley, 5. Ripley Underwater.

Patricia Highsmith also wrote Stranger on a Train which all time great Alfred Hitchcock turned into a movie. The Talented Mr. Ripley film debuted in 1999. The novel was written in 1955.

Highsmith moved from America to Switzerland, where her work received greater acceptance, in the late '60s, passing away in 1996. It has been said that her novels are, hynoticallly compelling, disturbingly entertaining, obsessively homoerotic, (she was herself gay) and hard to put down.

Interested? Learn more and read an excerpt from the book.

The copyright of the article THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY in Classic American Literature is owned by Barbara Ann Lyons. Permission to republish THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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