Ripley Under Water
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"Ripley is an unmistakable descendant of Gatsby, that 'penniless young man without a past' who will stop at nothing." —Frank Rich
Now part of American film and literary lore, Tom Ripley, "a bisexual psychopath and art forger who murders without remorse when his comforts are threatened" (New York Times Book Review), was Patricia Highsmith's favorite creation. In these volumes, we find Ripley ensconced on a French estate with a wealthy wife, a world-class art collection, and a past to hide. In Ripley Under Ground (1970), an art forgery goes awry and Ripley is threatened with exposure; in The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), Highsmith explores Ripley's bizarrely paternal relationship with a troubled young runaway, whose abduction draws them into Berlin's seamy underworld; and in Ripley Under Water (1991), Ripley is confronted by a snooping American couple obsessed with the disappearance of an art collector who visited Ripley years before. More than any other American literary character, Ripley provides "a lens to peer into the sinister machinations of human behavior" (John Freeman, Pittsburgh Gazette).
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With the chilling, knife-edged subtlety that is her trademark, Highsmith ( Strangers on a Train ; Ripley's Game ) details the civilized life pursued by her sociopath hero Tom Ripley, who here makes his fifth appearance and his first in a dozen years. Now living in the French countryside with his wife, Heloise, Ripley is bothered by an obnoxious American couple who have rented a house nearby and who seem bent on exploring incidents in Ripley's past. With no apparent personal motive, David Pritchard and his wife Janice refer to an American art dealer named Murchison who mysteriously disappeared some years ago after visiting Ripley. Ripley, who had murdered Murchison to prevent the exposure of an art forgery scheme and then dumped his body in a nearby canal, grows increasingly anxious and angry as Pritchard continues to harass him and begins dredging the local canals. Highsmith leads up to her resolution as unsensationally and evenhandedly as she describes Ripley's ordinary days spent tending his dahlias, practicing Schubert on the harpsichord, relishing his meals and looking out tenderly for Heloise and their housekeeper. The perfect gentleman, he is civil, considerate, utterly well mannered--and deadly. Highsmith will make readers look closer at their neighbors, and at themselves.
