If summertime travel is in your future, you could enjoy some small talk with an outgoing stranger while on your way to your destination—and what would be the harm in that? Well, Patricia Highsmith is happy to remind you, behind that charming face, there could be more than just a hot mess who seems to want to “share” the armrest. They might also want to “share” some murder.
Highsmith’s novels have been made into many enjoyable, uncomfortable movies and shows—the character of Tom Ripley alone has attracted several adaptations. Strangers on a Train was her first published novel, and was made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock a year later, and remains a wonderful cautionary tale about how a little bit of weakness can be exploited to completely ruin someone’s life. Both Hitchcock and Highsmith were equal-opportunity haters, and their loathing extended to their own identities. This most famous movie adaptation of the novel does change some things—it takes advantage of the architecture of Washington, DC, for one thing, to provide stark contrasts. In the book, our “hero,” Guy, is an architect, not a tennis player; on film, his athleticism is an obvious attraction for the stranger on the train. On the page, Guy knows he can build a life he knows he should want, but the structure cannot hold on shaky ground.
Somehow, the novel is even less generous towards the female characters, if you can believe it; but Highsmith had a low opinion of everyone, after all–especially those she knew she was not supposed to like as much as did. Cold war paranoia combines with the darkness before one of the dawns of society’s acceptance of diversities, and shows how living in the shadows can be dangerous and damaging to our perspectives of what we are willing to accept in others, and in ourselves. A quick read, and a story you might be familiar with from the movie, Strangers on a Train will remind you how much you can lose as a person, and as a member of society. Thank goodness humanity got all this sorted out since then, right?
Highsmith, Patricia. Strangers on a Train. Penguin, 1950.
