Deep Waterby Patricia Highsmith
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1957
Genre: mystery: silver age (1950-1979)
Pages: 271
ReRead?: No
Project: a century of women
In Deep Water, set in the quiet, small town of Little Wesley, Patricia Highsmith has created a vicious and suspenseful tale of love gone sour. Vic and Melinda Van Allen's loveless marriage is held together only by a precarious arrangement whereby, in order to avoid the messiness of divorce, Melinda is allowed to take any number of lovers as long as she does not desert her family. Eventually, Vic can no longer suppress his jealousy and tries to win back his wife by asserting himself through a tall tale of murder — one that soon comes true. In this complex portrayal of a dangerous psychosis emerging in the most unlikely of places, Highsmith examines the chilling reality behind the idyllic facade of American suburban life.
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn and domestic suspense don’t exist without Patricia Highsmith.
OK, maybe that is an overstatement – after all, it’s entirely possible that someone not named Patricia Highsmith would have come up with domestic suspense had she not published Ripley, Strangers on a Train and a book like Deep Water. Nonetheless, there is a through-line between Patricia Highsmith and books like Gone Girl.
Patricia Highsmith does not screw around, but she does mess with the reader’s head. And no one that I’ve read describes murder with so much visceral banality. When someone is murdered on the page in a Highsmith book, it is so extraordinarily disturbing – explained with clinical detachment, but also with rapt attention to the physical details and experience of murder.
Deep Water is the exploration of a man who is slowly cracking, but the facade is so resilient and convincing that it takes about 300 pages for him to completely unravel. The ending is utterly unavoidable and still shocking.
You make this sound interesting. I’ve never read any Patricia Highsmith novels. Would this be a good one to start with?
It’s one her best, I would say. the first Ripley novel is also a good start.
Just don’t start with Strangers on a Train. It does not represent her skills well.
I agree on Strangers on a Train. It ended up being a bit disappointing, although I will say that I felt like she really sustained the tension in that one.
I would start with The Talented Mr. Ripley, I think. BT, I did really like this one!
Now, this sounds interesting. I’ve never read a Patricia Highsmith novel. Would this be a suitable starting point?
This was a 5* book for me. Not a book that one “loves”, but one that truly showed the author’s skill.
Shocking, yes, but really suspenseful.
And, yeah, reading Highsmith has made it difficult for me to like books of a similar vein that have come after because she set the bar quite high.
Flynn is one who comes close in my book, … Ware not so much.
Agree here, too. I also hated that stupid The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Most modern thrillers leave me entirely underwhelmed.
Thank you for the replies. And sorry about the duplicate post. Internet had a meltdown my side.