Mermaids on the Golf Course: Stories

by Patricia Highsmith

Overview

The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with this work that reveals the chilling reality behind the idyllic facade of American suburban life.

The stories collected in Mermaids on the Golf Course are among Highsmith's most mature, psychologically penetrating works. As in the title story, in which a man's brush with death endows his everyday desires with tragic consequences, the warm familiarities of middle-class life become the eerie setting for Highsmith's chilling portrayals of violence, secrecy, and madness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393324563
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/17/2003
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.

Date of Birth:

January 19, 1921

Date of Death:

February 4, 1995

Place of Birth:

Fort Worth, Texas

Place of Death:

Locarno, Switzerland

Education:

B.A., Barnard College, 1942

Table of Contents

	Mermaids on the Golf Course	11
	The Button	27
	Where the Action Is	49
	Chris's Last Party	69
	A Clock Ticks at Christmas	97
	A Shot from Nowhere	117
	The Stuff of Madness	143
	Not in This Life, Maybe the Next	161
	I Am Not As Efficient As Other People	181
	The Cruelest Month	199
	The Romantic	221

Editorial Reviews

An atmosphere of nameless dread, of unspeakable foreboding, permeates every page of Patricia Highsmith, and there's nothing quite like it.

Boston Globe

Fans of Highsmith ( Strangers on a Train , Found in the Street ) will welcome this collection; for others it may be an acquired taste. Among the 11 short stories, ``The Stuff of Madness'' tells of a woman who displays her dead stuffed pets in the garden, and of her husband's final revolt. ``A Clock Ticks at Christmas'' is about the breakup of the marriage between a woman born rich and a man who had to make his money, and their opposite reactions to a theft by two urchins she befriends. In ``The Button,'' a man displaces his rage at his Mongoloid son by killing a stranger. In the title story, a government official injured in an assassination attempt on the President suffers a personality change he is unaware of, although everyone else notices his altered behavior. The art student visiting Mexico in ``A Shot from Nowhere'' sees a young boy killed but can get no one to do anything about it; he is arrested and thrown out of the country with no explanation. More mood pieces and psychological studies than nicely plotted stories, these tales are depressing and downbeat, albeit very well written. ( October

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Speaking of good stuff, this novel and short story collection are from one of mystery's best. Both Deep Water (1957) and Mermaids (1970) feature Highsmith's expert use of ordinary people and everyday settings that turn foul, making them all the more sinister. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal