Beautiful Shadow (Magill’s Literary Annual 2004)
At a glance:
- Author: Andrew Wilson
- First Published: 2003
- Type of Work: Biography
- Time of Work: 1921-1995
- Setting: Fort Worth, Texas; New York City; and Switzerland
- Principal Characters: Patricia Highsmith, Jay Bernard Plangman, Mary Highsmith, Stanley Highsmith, Willie Mae Coates, Kate Kingsley Skattebol, Alex Szogyi, Virginia Catherwood, Rosalind Constable, Ellen Hill, Barbara Ker-Seymer, Vivien De Bernardi, Daniel Keel, Charles Latimer
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: New York, Homosexuality or homosexuals, Crime or criminals, Twentieth century, Authors or writers, New York City, Exile or expatriates, Alienation, Novelists, Lesbianism or lesbians, Women, Texas, Career women, Switzerland or Swiss people
- Locales: New York, NY, Texas, Switzerland
Andrew Wilson is a fortunate biographer. His subject preserved her diaries and a mountain of other papers for him. She also refused all requests from others to write her life while she was alive, and she left in place a regime of literary executors who not only anointed Wilson but apparently also did everything possible to facilitate the research and writing of this biography. It requires, however, a shrewd and diligent biographer to take full advantage of so much material and access because there are pitfalls: The authorized biography is often full of details that congest the...
[The entire page is 1705 words long]
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