Name: Strangers on a Train
Rating: 3.613636363636364 (44 reviews)
ISBN: 9780393321982

Patricia Highsmith

Guy Haines loses his own identity after he is drawn into a plot to commit murder, in a new edition of the first novel by the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Reprint.

Strangers on a Train

The inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock s classic 1951 film, the novel that established Patricia Highsmith as a master of noir fiction."

Tim Pendry

Patricia Highsmith's first novel (1950) is deservedly a classic and only a year later became the basis for an equally classic Hitchcock movie. The premise is so well known that there is no reason to worry about spoilers - an educated but weak creative architect accidentally interacts with a sociopathic and far less intelligent rich mummy's boy who manipulates him into a 'quid pro-quo' murder of the latter's father. The story itself would just be a standard thriller with a clever twist if it was not for the quality of Highsmith's writing and the skilled construction of a psychological relationship that is riddled with repressed homosexuality or, in the case of the architect, repressed bisexuality. Perhaps the flaw in the psychology (but a necessary flaw if the story is to take place) is the one intellectual weakness of Guy, the architect. There are ample opportunities for him to unravel the situation before he crosses the rubicon and murders Bruno's father. He does not. The only justification I can see for this is distrust of the reaction of American law enforcement to an attempted explanation of events up to that point and it is true that everything we know about the American legal system suggests a man may be a fool to be honest. Nevertheless, if we suspend disbelief in this one respect, everything else hangs together perfectly and the story twists and turns so that I can tell you what I have told you and know that there is plenty left for you to be surprised by and react to until the final perhaps too easy closure. The book should be read as a thriller perhaps but better as a psychologically troubling novel of how a persistent psychopath can manipulate an apparently decent and respectable member of society into crossing moral boundaries regarded as central to that decency and respectability. The relationship between Guy and Bruno (the manipulator) is fascinating in part because from the beginning Bruno seems a rather unattractive character (he is introduced with a boil on his forehead and as an evident alcoholic) and yet he seduces not only Guy but perhaps the reader. Bruno is a killer from boredom, a mummy's boy, a misogynist, a wastrel, a rich kid who only wants money to spend on being wasteful, and yet there are times we find ourselves feeling sorry for him in his loneliness and his neediness. Guy cannot shake him off and neither can we. What is remarkable about the book is not the murders or the skilled plotting but the unfolding of the dynamic between the two men and the degradation of Guy into accomplice, murderer and then into a double life that undermines his otherwise perfect rise to social success and a happy marriage. As the book proceeds, we find ourselves questioning exactly how much Guy is victim of Bruno and how much he is complicit in Bruno's insidious entry into his life. There is no overt homosexuality in the book but critics are right to detect something going on on both sides. Highsmith has created not only these two complex characters where repressed guilt in Guy (Bruno is incapable of the sentiment) drives the story to its denouement but strong believable characters in Guy's wife, Bruno's mother and the private detective tracking them. Highsmith never overplays her hand. Each character is rounded rather than a unit of production in a thriller. You sense the dynamics that might take place between them 'off camera' and how these constrain the two main actors. Though not quite perfect (because of the necessities of plotting a crime thriller) these aspects of the story make the book into quite a serious novel of middle class life, contrasting the idle rich and the rising educated middle class, as America moved towards its 'man in the grey suit' era. The geography of the book is interesting. People move easily between towns and cities. The plot depends on people being or not being in particular places at particular times. Events happen on yachts. The big cities are contrasted with the American South West. Trains are obviously important. This is an expansive but lonely America with a distant enforcing State. It is not accidental that justice is represented by a private sector detective. Financial insecurity is ever-present as the situation a man runs from (in the case of Guy) only a couple of decades after the Great Depression. Consumerism is another theme. Bruno is always buying small accessories for himself or for Guy. Guy is building and fitting out a house for himself and his wife Anne. His paying work is for golf clubs and department stores, his pro bono for a hospital. Everyone drinks like an episode of 'Mad Men' but Bruno drinks to excess and as a crutch. Guns remain normal even if they are rarely used - Bruno kills by his hands. This is a society moving towards the American Dream but the protagonists are riddled with neurosis and stress. Having said that, the ancillary characters are actually quite stable. The private detective is dogged and intelligent, acting from a sense of honour to Bruno's father. Anne is almost perfect (though believable) - kind, loving, patient, intuitively intelligent although no walk-over. Even the flawed first wife, Miriam, may be a small-town flibbertigibbet but she is not bad: she is normal enough. The portrayal of Bruno's mother is cunningly not of someone who might explain Bruno's nature. She too seems shallow but otherwise normal. Everything revolves around the psychologies of the two men - killer by choice and complicit killer by necessity. Both are troubled. Both are incapable of seeing into themselves, Both are drawn to each other despite the best efforts of one of them. There is thus a stable decent and normal America into which these two alternately evil and weak men are inserted and whose destiny is to be defeated by it, one by his obsessive need to be noticed and the other by an equally obsessive need to be punished. I can see why Hitchcock was drawn to it ...

I'm glad I read this so that I can confidently use references to it effectively in jaunty off-hand comments. But honestly, if was fine. 

Liam Richardson

Sarah Sammis

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith is another of those books I discovered because of its film adaptation. In this case, it's one of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock films, taking turns with Psycho and Rear Window for the honor of being THE FAVORITE of the moment. The novel, though, also has the honor of being Highsmith's debut and damn, what fine debut it is.

Two men — Bruno and Guy — meet on a train bound for Texas and New Mexico. Bruno is a youngish playboy who wants nothing more than to get rid of his father so he can have more access to his mother's money. Guy is an architect (not a tennis player as he is in the film) wants a divorce so he can remarry. Bruno sets things in motion by taking care of Guy's problem.

Here, then is the big point of departure of the book and the film. Hitchcock makes Guy, his girlfriend and her family the indisputable heros. Guy is a victim of a deranged killer.

Not so for Highsmith's Guy. Although Miriam's death still comes at Bruno's hand, Guy's reaction is cold and calculating. Though reluctant to participate in Bruno's experiment, he's not against it on moral grounds — more out of a combination of laziness and a fear of getting caught. While he's not as unhinged as Bruno, he's not innocent — he's cold and calculating and perhaps the scarier of the two.

Maurice FitzGerald

Great book. This audiobook version is really awful due to the narration by Bronson Pinchot. I usually like it when a narrator "acts" the parts but Pinchot almost makes a joke out of the book.

Plot twist might not be the strong side of this, but oh god, the suspense and mind games are amazing!

High Fidelity

Plot twist might not be the strong side of this, but oh god, the suspense and mind games are amazing!
A classic of this genre worth reading.

Wynter

My first ever Patricia Highsmith and I'm craving for more. What drama, what tension...What a character study of a sociopath and a chance meeting on the train. Bruno was a brilliant character: half-villain, half-whimpering child. He seemed to enjoy to trot on the edge of being found out. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Jeannette Ordas

I was reading this book while on holiday and then when stopped in a hotel in Montreal, Hitchcock's version showed up (in French) on morning television. I had seen the movie years ago, so it was kinda neat to see the characters I was reading about on screen while they were so fresh in my head. While reading I kept thinking, "Guy, stop this madness!" (which I always think of the good guys drawn into the web of evil while watching film noirs). This book is as it should be. Pretty thrilling ride.

Not "enjoyable", strictly speaking, but it kept me up at night and gave me horrible dreams so there’s something to be said for that.

Liz Dollmeyer

Trever

Highsmith here comes off like a secular Graham Greene who spent too many nights drinking. The anxiety is hyper-present here in Guy Haines, and Bruno is one creepy son-of-a-bitch. The main difference between the two is that Highsmith offers no solution, which in a way gives it an interesting, almost apocalyptic spin. I'll be reading more from her.

Barbara Williford

I’m embarrassed to say that this is the first time reading this classic (and no, I have never seen the infamous movie). I’ve heard so many people reference the book.

Two strangers, Guy and Bruno, meet on a train. After that meeting and a drunken night of confessions, things spiral out of control. Murders, blackmail, and more deaths is the storyline for this must read.

Jeff Brown 

One of my favorite Hitchcock movies, I really can’t believe that a book can surpass the movie master. But the original did. Normally the development over many pages would be tedious. But in the book, it just added to the suspense. A throughly outstanding novel!

Audiobooks are going to make me raise my reading goal this year at the rate I'm going.

Anyways, this would have been better as a short story. I think Highsmith knew it, and lost her focus at the end. The story itself is well known but I think what could have been told in about half of the time, was instead dragged out for the reader to muddle through self anguish of characters that really aren't that likeable.

That, and a long discussion about an investigation that was suddenly called off or otherwise not there, and the ending combined just made me feel like it was partially a waste of time to read it. I think this might be a case of a movie being better than the book, but I haven't seen the movie either.

Strangers on a Train

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