The Black House

Horrific tragedy becomes disturbingly ordinary in The Black House, a masterful collection of short stories, written during a particularly dark time in Patricia Highsmith's life. As readers will discover, the work eerily evokes the warm familiarities of suburban life: the manicured lawns, the white picket fences, and the local pubs, each providing the backbone for her chilling portraits. Seemingly small indiscretions and infidelities — along with love affairs and murder — consume the characters that commit them. Cycles of destructive jealousy overwhelm the cheating protagonists of "Blow It" and "When In Rome," and the title story explores small-town male camaraderie and the destructive secret it masks. This enthralling collection of eleven stories presents Highsmith at her finest: melancholy, suspenseful, and sizzling with a powerful awareness of human emotion.

• Author
• Patricia Highsmith

• Format
• paperback

• Pages
• 272

• Publisher
• W. W. Norton Company

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9780393326314

• Genres
• fiction, crime, noir, mystery, american, thriller, horror

• Release date
• 2004