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Title: Found in the Street by Patricia Highsmith, Gary Fisketjon ISBN: 0-87113-326-1 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: September, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.14 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Get that kid out of the story!
Comment: This was my first Highsmith novel and I am pleased to know that there are better ones out there. I did think that the pacing was good and the tension sufficient for my limited tolerance. However the characters were outlandishly polite and accepting over death, our of marriage affairs, gay and otherwise, and the gentle manner by which marital sex was managed. There were so many brilliant moments in their lives, successful books, art world ingenuity, even two very significant deaths were magnificently endured. Following one murder, the couple shared drinks, mulled over the wife's gay affair and the husband's otherwise erotic obsession, to be followed by lamb chops-perfect, I'm sure. The child of this wealth and beauty union, was over the edge of my tolerance however. She could draw upon command, was never impossibly intrusive and went easily whenever the plot commanded, to the abundant babysitters who could instantly be called upon for days of support.
And yet the book had a definite intelligence, a psychological frisson,in the the ambiguous questionably sinister watchful movements of a lonely and completely marginalized 50 year old man. We try to stay ahead of that very slender line where he keeps his madness, his rage and consuming sexual confusion from psychopathic proportions. At the same time the story is unbearably tragic when he is brutalized by the violent toughs who reduce him from even the slightest acceptability. We wait for another personality or some violence from him or to him, its a gamble and it's well done. We do not know the details of how this character became isolated by his own broken memories, Ralph is isolated by virtue of his own broken memories, but we know they are unmentionable. The book is redeemed through his part in it.
Rating: 3
Summary: an unfortunate divergence from Highsmith's proven formula...
Comment: 'Found in the Street' is certainly one of Highsmith's stranger books. Firstly, nearly all the characters are gay, bi-sexual, or at least very gay accepting. Even in today's era of enlightenment I found all this to be a bit unrealistic. Secondly, Highsmith lets down the reader by not capitalising on the suspense built up throughout much of the book. In other words the book's ending is a dud. Having said all this, 'Found in the Street' is standard Highsmith in that it is well-written (nice prose) and the characterisations are quite decent (despite the contrived gay aspect).
So what's the story about? It concerns a young, newly gay-enlightened woman in NYC being chased by an obsessive middle-aged bachelor. Coincidentally this middle-aged bachelor finds a wallet in the street owned by an artist. This artist's wife has some lesbian tendencies. All the characters then mesh together and, well, that's pretty much it. As I mentioned above, the ending is rather poor.
As an aside, Highsmith has done a MUCH better story concerning lesbians in her classic 'Carol'. That book is strongly recommended regardless of the reader's gender or gender preference.
Bottom line: 'Found is the Street' is really a forgettable piece of lesbian-mystery nonsense. Yet it is generally well-written, and I suspect Highsmith fans will find it okay.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good but not great, and a curious attitude toward kids
Comment: Patricia Highsmith is one of my favorite novelists, but this was not one of her best books (though I agree with the reviewer who found the character of Ralph very well conceived). Was it not odd, for example, that, while Ralph *was* right in the end, the tension that was built up surrounding his character--his potential capacity for violence--never amounted to anything?
And there's something else that troubled me about this book and about The Price of Salt: the attitude toward children implicit in them. Yes, yes, I know that this is fiction and the attitudes expressed do not necessarily express the attitude of the author. But I, at least, found the characters' distance from their children in both novels troubling and unrealistic. In Found in the Street the daughter is forever given to babysitters to raise, while the parents live almost as if they had never had a daughter in the first place: nightclubbing until all hours, and the mother went off on a trip for six months, we are told, when the kid was two, leaving the child with a grandmother for the duration. Perhaps Highsmith intended thereby to portray the parents in a certain light, but I wonder whether she found this sort of behavior remarkable or indeed realistic. In The Price of Salt, on the other hand, while one of the characters *is* broken up about not being able to see her daughter enough, I got the impression from the book that in the heirarachy of relationships, children rank below lovers.
But perhaps I am missing something. I am curious about others' reactions.
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Title: A Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0393321975 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0393323676 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0871132591 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: October, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: A Dog's Ransom by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0393323366 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: A Game for the Living by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0871132109 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: March, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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