![]() What Highsmith, who ranks as perhaps the mid-twentieth century’s most successful serial seducer of women, does not admit is that this fake name ensured that her career wouldn’t be derailed by societal (or, more specifically, the literary establishment’s) abhorrence of lavender life. So I decided to offer the book under another name.” ![]() The declaration functioned somewhat as a misdirection, deployed to explain why she published the book pseudonymously (as Claire Morgan), though not why she refused until almost forty years later to publicly acknowledge-and thus out herself-that she was the author of this swoony tale of same-sex romance: “If I were to write a novel about a lesbian relationship, would I then be labelled a lesbian-book writer? That was a possibility, even though I might never be inspired to write another such book in my life. ![]() IN AN AFTERWORD WRITTEN to accompany the 1990 reissue of her second novel, 1952’s sapphic paragon The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith insisted, “I like to avoid labels,” taking umbrage even at being called a suspense writer. ![]()
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