Reviews

"Whereas we read Stephen King or Ruth Rendell to relish the thrills that come from carefully controlled verbal terror, Highsmith is not to be taken so lightly. She conveys a firm, unshakable belief in the existence of evil--personal, psychological, and political. ... The genius of Tales--and all of Highsmith's writing--is that it is at once deeply disturbing and exhilarating."--Boston Phoenix "Highsmith is the poet of apprehension rather than fear. ... In her short stories Highsmith naturally has to adopt a different method. She is after the quick kill rather than the slow encirclement of the reader, and how admirably and with what field-craft she hunts us down." --Graham Greene "One of the truly brilliant short-story writers of the 20th century." --Otto Penzler "Highsmith's genius is in presenting fantasy's paradox: successes are not what they seem . . . Where in the traditional fairy tale the heroine turns the toad into a prince, in Highsmith's fable the prince becomes a toad--success is nearly always fatal. ... Combining the best features of the suspense genre with the best of existential fiction--a reflection--the stories are fabulous, in all senses of that word."--Paul Theroux "You could swear she's writing fact wrapped up in very sly fiction . . . definitely worth reading." --San Francisco Chronicle "The stories are flush with satire, mischief and menace. Hers is a world consumed by self-destruction, driven by stupidity, greed and self-interest--a place where the human race cannibalizes its own. ... [Her stories] unsettle the soul and dampen the palms."--Harper's Bazaar