Synopses & Reviews
COMPLETED JUST MONTHS before Patricia High-smith's death in 1995, Small g explores the labyrinthine intricacies of love, sexuality, and jealousy in a style and form few knew were part of her range. The story opens in Zurich with the brutal murder of Petey Ritter. We then jump six months ahead to Jakob's, a louche bar known for its mixture of gay, straight, and bisexual clientele, where Petey's lover Rickie is recovering slowly, spending time at the bar with his dancing dog, Lulu. They share Jakob's with the club-footed Renate, a possessive seamstress, and her beautiful apprentice Luisa. Then the impressionable and beautiful Teddie Stevenson arrives. Luisa and Rickie both fall in love with him--but Renate and her henchman Willi conspire to break Teddies spell by force. Renate in turn becomes the subject of a counterconspiracy hatched by Rickie and Luisa, with hilarious and unexpected results.
Review
"All the qualities we love about Highsmith's work...are here in abundance...her characters astonish themselves, and us, by discovering love in the very last places they ever expected to find it." Francine Prose
Review
"Its superabundance of characters is only one of the elements that give its air of Shakespearean complexity." O Magazine
Review
" is a welcome addition to Highsmith's published novels, offering readers an insight into a fascinating aspect of Swiss society and an opportunity to explore Highsmith's final concerns and obsessions." David Leavitt New York Times Book Review
Review
"Highsmith's last book...offer[s] an intriguing exploration of gay culture and the complexities of love, jealousy, possessiveness and friendship." Louise Welsh Washington Post Book World
Review
"The best thing about is the affectionate homage it pays to relationships that are not exclusive or possessive, that may or may not be sexual, but which have the power to create happiness or break a stranglehold that is choking off a full, delicious life." Misha Stone Booklist
Review
"All those qualities that have made Highsmith such an important figure--her carefully crafted prose, her understanding of human frailties and the randomness of life--are present in this final work." Lambda Book Report
Synopsis
In unmistakable Highsmithian fashion, , Patricia Highsmith's final novel, opens near a seedy Zurich bar with the brutal murder of Petey Ritter. Unraveling the vagaries of love, sexuality, jealousy, and death, Highsmith weaves a mystery both hilarious and astonishing, a classic fairy tale executed with a characteristic penchant for darkness. Published in paperback for the first time in America, is at once an exorcism of Highsmith's literary demons and a revelatory capstone to a wholly remarkable career. It is a delightfully incantatory work that, in the tradition of Shakespeare's , shows us how bizarre and unpredictable love can be.
Synopsis
"Like Ripley, [Highsmith's characters] burn in a reader's memory."--Susan Salters Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review
About the Author
Patricia Highsmith, who died in Switzerland in 1995, wrote more than thirty novels, including Strangers on a Trainand The Price of Salt, as well as numerous short stories.