The Two Faces of January: Virago Modern Classics

Praise for Patricia Highsmith

"[Highsmith's] characters are irrational, and they leap to life in their very lack of reason. . . . Highsmith is the poet of apprehension rather than fear."—Graham Greene

"For some obscure reason, one of our greatest modernist writers, Patricia Highsmith, has been thought of in her own land as a writer of thrillers. She is both. She is certainly one of the most interesting writers of this dismal century."—Gore Vidal

"Miss Highsmith's genius is in presenting fantasy's paradox: successes are not what they seem. . . . Where in the traditional fairy tale the heroine turns the toad into a prince, in Miss Highsmith's fables the prince becomes a toad—success is nearly always fatal. . . . Combining the best features of the suspense genre with the best of existential fiction—a reflection—the stories are fabulous, in all the senses of that word."—Paul Theroux

"Patricia Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing—bad dreams that keep us restless and thrashing for the rest of the night."—Terrence Rafferty, New Yorker

"Highsmith, who can change reality to nightmare with one well-turned phrase, is a legendary crime writer."—Cleveland Plain Dealer