"The Talented Mr. Ripley author gave us many gay classics on paper, and even more on screen. But have we ever understood the full extent of Highsmith's queerness? The author known to friends simply as "Pat"-and as "Ripley" in certain letters-became famous for her dark tales of obsession, deception, and same-sex desire. If we take all the evidence into account, a much queerer picture starts to emerge."
"As a child, Highsmith, according to biographer Joan Schenkar, "insisted" on dressing in boy's clothes. This propensity only got stronger in later life. In the 70s, during a trip to Berlin, Pat went around with a "merry band of tranvestites," and visited "gay, lesbian, and transvestite bars like the Ax-Bax, Romy Haag, and Pour Ellen." Schenkar even refers to Highsmith's look in later life as "her own version of transvestism: a scarf, a necklace, a bracelet, even a trace of lipstick.""
Patricia Highsmith wrote The Price of Salt (later adapted as Carol) and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Publishers warned that a "lesbian pulp novel" would end her career, but The Price of Salt instead cemented a reputation for subversive queer thrillers with adaptation potential. Highsmith became known for dark tales of obsession, deception, and same-sex desire. As a child she insisted on dressing in boys' clothes, and later associated with transgender communities during a 1970s trip to Berlin, visiting bars and traveling with a "merry band of tranvestites." Biographer Joan Schenkar describes a later-life look described as "transvestism." Recent adaptations and a 2022 documentary argue for a queerer, possibly trans, reading of Highsmith's life and work.
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