Edith's Diary
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''Edith's Diary'' (1977) is a
psychological thriller Psychological thriller is a Film genre, genre combining the thriller (genre), thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting ...
novel by
Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith (born Mary Patricia Plangman; January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character T ...
, the seventeenth of her 22 novels. It was first published in the UK by Heinemann. One critic described it as "a relentless dissection of an unexceptional life that burns itself out from a lack of love and happiness".


Composition

Highsmith replicated the dislocation she used in ''
The Cry of the Owl ''The Cry of the Owl'' is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, the eighth of her 22 novels. It was first published in the US in 1962 by Harper & Row and in the UK by Heinemann the following year. It explores, in the phrase of ...
'' years earlier, moving her characters from New York City to small-town Pennsylvania. She also replicated her own obsessive diary writing in the lead character. The dedication reads simply: To Marion, which was the way her sometime lover, Marion Aboudaram, asked to be referenced. Knopf rejected the manuscript in 1976. It apparently encountered problems because of its failure to fit into the recognizable genres of crime, suspense, mystery, or even traditional fiction. It was published the next year, first by Heinemann in London, then by
Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...
in New York. As in most of Highsmith's novels, there is a murder committed in this one, though its significance for the plot and the characters is negligible.


Synopsis

The novel describes "the externally and internally imposed exile of the discarded middle-aged woman". The story begins in the late 1950s and focuses on Edith Howland, a housewife who, with her journalist husband, Brett, and their 10-year-old son, Cliffie, relocates from New York City to small-town Pennsylvania. Cliffie has been exhibiting generally problematic and anti-social behavior; on the family's last night in New York, he tries to kill their pet cat. The novel presents the increasingly stark contrasts between the life Edith records in her diary and her daily reality. In the diary, she details an imaginary life in which both she and Cliffie achieve grand success and gratification; friendships are more easy-going and she enjoys grandchildren. In 1965, Brett abandons Edith for a younger woman. She is left living with an alcoholic, delinquent Cliffie and her husband's senile uncle, George. Even as she retreats into her diary and recasts her personal life, she remains always aware of the tangible world's social injustices. Having always been a woman of liberal political views, she notably maintains a sharp critique of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. As years pass, friends and acquaintances become extremely concerned about Edith's psychological well-being. Her ex-husband sets about forcing her to see a psychiatrist. When Edith's family doctor brings a psychiatrist friend of his to her home, she is overtaken by fear and paranoia surrounding the possibility of others getting their hands on her diary. After she rushes to conceal it, she dies accidentally. Alone in the house, Cliffie ponders his own worries about someone inspecting the diary.


Reception

''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' called this novel "her strongest, her most imaginative, and by far her most substantial". In ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', Jane Larkin Crane wrote: "''Edith's Diary'' takes the form of an old-fashioned psychological chiller, but there is also something stronger, the poignancy of her struggle not to go under. She is betrayed by such ordinary dreams." ''Edith's Diary'' has been described as "one of ighsmith'sbleakest" novels, that "presents a narrative of a woman's life that offers no redemptive possibilities and is portrayed instead as a slow but unremitting descent into madness".


Adaptation

''Edith's Diary'' was adapted into the German film '' Edith's Diary'' (1983), directed by
Hans W. Geißendörfer Hans W. Geißendörfer (born 6 April 1941 in Augsburg) is a German film director and producer. Director of ''The Glass Cell (film), The Glass Cell'' (1978, starring Brigitte Fossey), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Lang ...
and starring Angela Winkler as Edith. Highsmith called the film "dreadful" and said: "Making the son in love with the mother is a lot of
Oedipal In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex is a son's sexual attitude towards his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. A daughter's attitude of desire f ...
crap."Gerald Peary, "", ''
Sight and Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (formerly written ''Sight & Sound'') is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Since 1952, it has conducted the well-known decennial ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time. ...
'', Spring 1988, Vol.75, No.2, pp.104-105, accessed December 8, 2015


References

{{Patricia Highsmith novels 1977 American novels Novels by Patricia Highsmith American novels adapted into films Heinemann (publisher) books