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“Ripley’s Reviews” is an ongoing series where I will review every book in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” Series, as well as multiple screen adaptations of the novels. I will post my reviews on the first Thursday of the month, and delve into the twisted mind of one Tom Ripley and all the various interpretations that he has come to life within. Up first is the first book in the series, “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.
Book: “The Talented Mr. Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith
Publishing Info: Coward-McCann, January 1955
Where Did I Get This Book: I own it.
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: It’s here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith’s five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a “sissy.” Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game.
“Sinister and strangely alluring,” (Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly) The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confidence man, whose talent for self-invention is as unnerving—and unnervingly revealing of the American psyche—as ever.
Review: As mentioned in my intro to this new blog series, I first discovered Tom Ripley and “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, the first in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripliad” when I was a teenager on Spring Break. It ended up being the perfect beach read, and I was totally immersed in the story of a con artist turned murderer usurping the life on an unsuspecting heir apparent on an Italian extended holiday. There has been a bit of a renaissance of creepy protagonists behaving badly all for the entertainment of a joyful audience, and clearly I picked this up all those years ago and it has followed me ever since. I was curious what revisiting it would be like as an adult with a healthy love of thrillers and despicable antiheroes, and baby, Tom Ripley still wows after all this time.
As a thriller it is taut and suspenseful and well paced, as we start off in New York and meet Tom Ripley, an aimless twenty something who finds himself asked by a wealthy patriarch to go and fetch his son Dickie Greenleaf, whom Ripley knew in passing and has been gallivanting in Italy on his father’s dime. Ripley and Dickie were barely acquaintances, but a free trip to Europe is too good to pass up, and once Tom arrives he is completely enamored with Dickie and his lifestyle. What starts as an awkward friendship between Tom and Dickie (and Dickie’s quasi-gal pal Marge) slowly turns into Ripley coveting everything Dickie has, which leads to murder, more murder, and identity theft and fraud. Highsmith approaches this with a very matter of fact tone that was in some ways a bit disturbing, but also knows how to eek out all of the tension as Tom does more nefarious things, and flirts more and more with danger as the authorities start to catch on that something is wrong. It’s cat and mouse and part of the suspense is not whether Ripley will get away with it, but whether he is going to be caught. And while that sounds like the same thing, it isn’t really. Because Highsmith lays this out in such a way that it is very likely that the reader will perhaps be more hopeful that he gets away with it.
How is this possible? Well, we of course have to talk about Tom Ripley and the way that Patricia Highsmith presents him to her readers and the audience. He was far more calculated and cold than I remembered him being, basically from the jump being portrayed as a con artist at best (as when he is approached by Dickie’s father to set forth to Italy he is running petty IRS scams on unsuspecting rubes) who sees an opportunity to live off the elite, and then revealing his sociopathic nature as the story goes on. I don’t particularly find Ripley charming or even likable, but Highsmith does write him in a way that managed to still make me kind of want to see how far he could go because she drew him out so well in her characterization. And having read it previously and knowing there are a few more books in the series, knowing he was going to get away with it was galling… but also a little satisfying. Come on, it’s not like the thriller genre doesn’t produce villainous protagonists all the time these days, and Ripley was certainly one of the first, and he still holds up. In this book it’s just a bit of a wicked thrill to see how he slowly takes over Dickie’s life and wealth, even if Dickie (and Ripley’s other victims) certainly don’t deserve it. Highsmith absolutely achieved what she set out to do with this character. I am more than happy to keep following him and see what terrible shenanigans he gets into going forward, because now I am wholly unaware. Bring it on, Tom.
“The Talented Mr. Ripley” was as enjoyable this time around as it was when I was a teenager, and it is a clear foundational work for the modern thriller. It gets under the skin but makes you want to know more. What a ride this ongoing series is going to be. Next up is Book 2 in the series, “Ripley Under Ground”.
Rating 8: A game changer for the Thriller genre and a deep dive into a highly despicable (yet highly entertaining) psychopath and his thought processes, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” still stands tall after all this time.
Reader’s Advisory:
“The Talented Mr. Ripley” is included on the Goodreads lists “Thrillers You Must Read!”, and “I Like Serial Killers”.
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