Claire Morgan

Born Mary Patricia Plangman in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1921, Patricia Highsmith became one of the most distinctive American novelists of the 20th century. She is especially remembered for psychological thrillers such as Strangers on a Train and the five Ripley novels, books admired for their tension, moral ambiguity, and unsettling insight into the human mind.

In 1952, she published The Price of Salt under the pseudonym Claire Morgan. The novel, later reissued as Carol, stood apart from much mid-century fiction about same-sex love because it gave its characters a more hopeful future, and it has since become a landmark in LGBTQ literature.

Highsmith spent much of her later life in Europe and died in Locarno, Switzerland, in 1995. Whether writing crime fiction or a love story, she had a rare gift for making ordinary encounters feel charged with danger, longing, and possibility.