In Conversation: Crime novelists Megan Abbott and Sarah Weinman
Crime fiction meets true crime as acclaimed authors Megan Abbott (Give Me Your Hand, The Turnout) and Sarah Weinman (The Real Lolita, Scoundrel) discuss the legacy of women’s crime writing in both mid-century America and the present day.
Strangers on a Train
1951 / 101 mins / b/w
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock / Sc. Raymond Chandler, Whitfield Cook, Czenzi Ormonde / Cine. Robert Burks / Prod. Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker
Based on the novel Strangers on a Train (1950) by Patricia Highsmith
DCP courtesy of Swank Pictures
Introduced by Hilary Hallett, Columbia University
“It starts with the shriek of a train whistle… and ends with shrieking excitement!”
Patricia Highsmith’s career as mystery writer began on a high note, when her debut novel, Strangers on a Train, was chosen for adaptation by the “master of suspense” himself, Alfred Hitchcock. Raised in Fort Worth, Texas, and a graduate of Barnard College in 1942, Highsmith would go on to become one of the few canonized women crime writers of her age, whose other works include The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), Deep Water (1957), and The Tremor of Forgery (1969), among others. Once described by J. G. Ballard as “every bit as deviant and quirky as her mischievous heroes,” Highsmith was also a notoriously outspoken individual who eventually settled in Europe, where she felt her work was better appreciated.
Although she avoided speaking publicly on her sexuality, there are many documented affairs that suggest Highsmith walked a fine line between romance and suspense. The queer subtext in Strangers on a Train points to the tension she was facing both in and outside of her fiction. Her novel The Price of Salt (1952), which was adapted into Todd Haynes’ Carol (2015), is based on a woman Highsmith secretly followed home one evening. She wrote, “I felt quite close to murder too. … To arrest her suddenly, my hands upon her throat (which I should really like to kiss).”
Highsmith’s emphasis on the mechanics of murder aligned with Alfred Hitchcock’s interest in how one kills over why. Hitchcock and Highsmith were also both drawn to the idea of doubles throughout their careers, although Hitchcock’s characters were often compatible doubles as opposed to Highsmith’s good/evil pairings, like Bruno and Guy. Hitchcock’s outsized stature as auteur has often eclipsed his literary sources, but Highsmith’s novel represents a true turning point for the director’s career: Strangers on a Train ushered Hitchcock away from his late 1940s experimentalism (Rope, 1948; Stage Fright, 1950) and toward the well-appointed, high-octane thrillers that became his 1950s hallmark.
– Paige Wills
About Megan Abbott
Megan Abbott is the Edgar Award-winning author of ten crime novels, including You Will Know Me (2016), Give Me Your Hand (2018), and the New York Times bestseller The Turnout (2022), winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Paris Review, and the Wall Street Journal. Dare Me, the series she adapted from her own novel, is now streaming on Netflix. Her next novel, Beware the Woman, will appear in summer 2023.
About Sarah Weinman
Sarah Weinman is the author of Scoundrel (2022) and The Real Lolita (2018) and the editor of Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession (2022) and Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning (forthcoming 2023). She was a 2020 National Magazine Award finalist for reporting and a Calderwood Journalism Fellow at MacDowell, and her work has appeared in New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and the Washington Post. Weinman writes the crime column for the New York Times Book Review and lives in New York City and Northampton, MA.
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