»It promises to be one of the literary highlights of 2021 — publication of the diaries of Patricia Highsmith, one of the most conflicted, fascinating novelists of the 20th century.«

»Phrased in a much more direct and forthcoming voice than the low, flat, compellingly psychotic murmur she tended to use for her fictions, Pat Highsmith’s astonishing candor in the witness stand of her personal notebooks, and heartbreaking self-exposures in the jury box of her diaries, are like nothing else in American confessional literature.«

»Patricia Highsmith’s lacerating diaries and notebooks, however, will be seen as one of the great twentieth- century artistic self- portraits.«

»A portrait of the writer as a young woman«

»Disclosures from a meticulously documented life [. . .] An admirably edited volume for scholars and voracious fans.«

»A quarter century after the death of novelist Highsmith (1921–1995), fans are given a fascinating and unprecedented look into the ›playground for [her] imagination‹ [. . . ] Devotees and historians alike will linger over every morsel.«

»More than 50 years of the novelist’s diaries and notebooks have been assembled in this volume, painstakingly annotated for context by Highsmith’s longtime editor von Planta [. . . ] An exceptional effort [. . . ] Sure to be a resource for future scholars [. . . ] offering a frank and detailed account of a woman and writer coming of age.«

»With a presentient awareness of her audience, Highsmith's candid entries reflect a determined writer and an uneasy heart as they outline her work, reading, and social life.«

»But her writing owes everything to this attitude: of confronting the world armed with a steel needle.«

»They [the records] testify to the recalcitrant, unrelenting spirit of this great American curmudgeon and gifted crime writer.«

»Reading Patricia Highsmith's diary entries filled me with a joy that goes beyond the thrill of such a literary treasure being published for the first time after almost thirty years.«

»They offer intimate insights into a writer’s soul - and into her attempt to write a lesbian novel, which she published under a pseudonym in 1952.«

»The Highsmith community has been eagerly awaiting this moment: The Diaries and Notebooks are finally being published.«

»In these diaries and notebooks, one gets to know unknown sides to the crime writer: the lyrical, ecstatic and aphoristic.«

»Published for the very first time, this outstanding edition presents a curated selection of 1300 pages of Highsmith’s 18 diaries and 38 notebooks. A fascinating document of cultural history.«

»The whole book is excellent. Highsmith is pointed and dry about herself and everything else. But the early chapters are special. They comprise one of the most observant and ecstatic accounts I’ve read — and it’s a crowded field! — about being young and alive in New York City. [...] It’s been sharply edited by Anna von Planta, Highsmith’s longtime editor. The introductory material for each section is useful and concise. There’s no desire to hit ›skip intro.‹«

»And what a journey she goes through, from 1941 until 1995, recreated in an elliptic, even cryptic tone.«

»We also have to welcome the editorial choice of mixing her diary entries, which chronicle her loves, her travels in Europe and South America, her ideas on religion or marriage, with those of the notebooks dedicated to her literary reflections.«

»Here remain, however, a bit more than a thousand printed pages, covering the years 1941-1995, which allow us to approach her complex personality and to dig down into the source of inspiration for some of her books.«

»This volume is not only a revealing document of cultural history, but most of all the self-portrait of a glittering and contradictory writer.«

»Highsmith’s German editor since 1984, Anna von Planta, and her team did this brilliantly.«

»A milestone in the literary diary genre, and not just for the 20th century.«

»Her Diaries and Notebooks show that the mental landscapes of Highsmith’s protagonists are indeed often inspired by her own psychological abyss.«

»›The forest made only of ›nos‹ is resurrecting again.‹ she once wrote. Even just sentences like these make reading it worthwhile.«

»Yet despite the extremes of mood and tone, this volcano of a book, winnowed from more than 8,000 pages of notebooks and diaries left behind when Highsmith died in 1995, is in fact a model of compression.«

»One of the delights of the early diary entries is the unlikely spectacle of Highsmith as steward of a lot of glancing – Bridget Jones-type material (8 November 1943: Nice day. Wore moccasins to work with great success.)«

»A new book, Patricia Highsmith: Diaries and Notebooks, opens a window onto this extraordinary writer’s inner life and working methods.«

»Furthermore, the magnificent result is, indeed, unpredictable. It’s impossible to guess what Highsmith will come out with next. There is a startling phrase on every page.«

»Her great contribution to the mystery genre turns out to be nothing else than her diaries and journals. Even these pages conceal with one hand what they display with another: ›It is curious that in the most interesting periods of one’s life, one never writes one’s diary.‹«

»The translators have done an excellent job, matching the voice of the diaries with that of the notebooks.«

»As the Diaries and Notebooks reveal, Pat was also unpredictable, which makes you want to dive right back into her oeuvre again.«

»A war chest beneath duvet covers.«

»A spellbinding read.«

»Anybody who isn’t a fan yet should read one of the mentioned novels or The Cry of the Owl or This Sweet Sickness. But beware: This stuff is addictive.«

»A woman making her way through a male century.«

»These secret diaries take us inside Patricia Highsmith's brilliant yet twisted mind.«

»Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks, out from Liveright and compiled by Highsmith's longtime editor Anna von Planta, provides stunning access to the mind of a notoriously secretive author.«

»The author left 38 notebooks and 18 diaries, which the heroic Anna von Planta has decoded and cut into this vast, engrossing collection.«

»Although the originals of the diaries have been available to scholars for some years, and have already been mined by biographers, for the interested reader this volume of previously unpublished material breaks new ground, providing us with a chance of glimpsing at last the real Patricia Highsmith.«

»The truth about her is infinitely more interesting and complex, as can be seen in this selection from her 8,000 pages of diaries and notebooks, which she maintained from the age of 19 to the end of her life.«

»But nothing, as Schenkar suggested, in those volumes compares with the galvanic thrill of reading Highsmith’s raw first-person accounts, of following the writer as she tries to make sense of her self over the course of half a century.«

»Editor Anna von Planta has succeeded in this incredible feat, creating one of the most outststanding books of the year.«

»An untiringly insightful, soul-nourishing book that narrates a long journey into solitude.«

»The publishing event of the season [...]«

»The diaries are peppered with memorable phrases that give us an accurate x-ray of her [Highsmith’s] psychology.«

»In spite of her fame as a misanthropist, her diaries reveal a woman who ›dove head first into life and writing‹.«

»The thousand pages of Diaries and Notebooks 1941-1995 form a ›lacerating, pointed and heartrending‹ volume that contains Patricia Highsmith’s most intimate writing.«

»This marvelous collection will appeal to Highsmith completists, as well as readers tentatively wading into the author’s deeper waters for the first time.«