What
did the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley
and Strangers on a Train really want
to write? Wonder Woman.
In
the mid- to late 1940s, the aspiring novelist Patricia Highsmith penned the
comic book adventures of The Human Torch, The Destroyer, The Black Terror, Fighting
Yank, Captain Midnight, Spy Smasher and other superheroes, but she never landed
the gig she really wanted.
“Always keen on advancement, Pat tried
to write for the high-paying, widely distributed Wonder Woman comic book, but was shut out of the job,” noted biographer
Joan Schenkar in her book The Talented
Miss Highsmith. “This was in 1947, just one year before she began to
imagine her lesbian novel The Price of
Salt (filmed in 2015 as Carol). Wonder
Woman, daughter of Amazon Queen Hippolyta and still the heroine of her own
comic book, has a favorite exclamation: ‘Suffering Sappho!’ She lives on the
forbidden-to-males Paradise Island with a happy coepheroi of lithe young Amazons, and she arrived in America in
1942, in the form of her alter ego, Lieutenant Diana Prince, to help the Allies
fight World War II. The thought of what Patricia Highsmith, in her most
sexually active period (the 1940s were feverish for Pat) and in the right mood,
might have made of Wonder Woman’s bondage-obsessed plots and nubile young
Amazons can only be inscribed on the short list of popular culture’s lingering
regrets.”
Although
Highsmith later tried to efface her comic book work, superhero-ish themes like
alter egos and dopplegangers emerged to play a significant role in her most
famous novels.
Highsmith
had gotten into the superhero business by answering an ad from comic book
editor Richard Hughes, but her favorite company was Timely (now Marvel). Timely
editor Vince Fago reportedly tried to arrange a date between Highsmith and
young Stan Lee, but neither was interested.
“So
Spider-Man (the superhero Stan Lee co-created) misses his opportunity to date
Tom Ripley (the antihero Pat Highsmith created),” Schenkar quipped.
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