People Who Knock On The Door

Author: Patricia Highsmith

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $23.00 AUD
  • : 9780349004976
  • : Little, Brown Book Group Limited
  • : Virago Press Ltd
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  • : 0.304
  • : August 2016
  • : 144mm X 198mm X 26mm
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  • : 24.99
  • : August 2016
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  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

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  • :
  • : Patricia Highsmith
  • : VMC
  • : Paperback
  • : 1
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  • :
  • : 813.54
  • : 384
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Barcode 9780349004976
9780349004976

Description

In a pitiless story of prying suburban self-righteousness, Patricia Highsmith introduces the Alderman family as they descend into moral crisis. When small-town insurance salesman Richard Alderman becomes a born-again Christian, his once tight-knit family quickly begins to rip apart at the seams. He and his youngest son, Robbie, embrace their newfound faith, while his elder son Arthur rejects it. Caught in the middle of the ensuing web of lies, his wife, Lois, tries to keep the family together, but when the church elders start to interfere in Arthur's love life, events spiral toward violence. In this masterful late work, Highsmith weaves a powerful tale about blind faith and the peculiar ideas of justice that lie underneath the veneer of respectability.

Author description

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) was born in Fort Worth, Texas. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, was made into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. The Talented Mr Ripley, published in 1955, introduced the fascinating anti-hero Tom Ripley, and was made into an Oscar-winning film in 1999 by Anthony Minghella. Graham Greene called Patricia Highsmith 'the poet of apprehension', saying that she 'created a world of her own - a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger'. Patricia Highsmith died in Locarno, Switzerland, in February 1995. Her last novel, Small g: A Summer Idyll, was published posthumously, the same year.