Llaverac@bookwyrm.social reviewed Flung Out of Space by Hannah Templer
A fictional and complex portrait of bestselling author Patricia Highsmith caught up in the longing …
What's your wife's name again, Eddie? Because I'd like to murder you, but I want to be sure that she hasn't called dibs first
5 stars
It was amazing?
Admittedly I love sarcastic female leads with devastating one-liners, but I really liked this book. It's a fictional take on an episode in Patricia Highsmith's life, when she was anonymously writing low-grade comics while penning what would become Strangers on a Train, followed The Price of Salt, later renamed Carol.
The muted color palette works really well here: it conveys the grayness of Patricia's life very well, between her boring jobs and the rest of the world telling her she should stop being a lesbian. An occasional pop of orange signals a rare moment of excitement, and I love how Hannah Templer renders shadows in the thriller scenes, or how she mimics old comic books style to illustrate Highsmith's stories.
There's also a little mise en abyme here, that makes us realize just how far we've come since then: the story shows a lesbian …
It was amazing?
Admittedly I love sarcastic female leads with devastating one-liners, but I really liked this book. It's a fictional take on an episode in Patricia Highsmith's life, when she was anonymously writing low-grade comics while penning what would become Strangers on a Train, followed The Price of Salt, later renamed Carol.
The muted color palette works really well here: it conveys the grayness of Patricia's life very well, between her boring jobs and the rest of the world telling her she should stop being a lesbian. An occasional pop of orange signals a rare moment of excitement, and I love how Hannah Templer renders shadows in the thriller scenes, or how she mimics old comic books style to illustrate Highsmith's stories.
There's also a little mise en abyme here, that makes us realize just how far we've come since then: the story shows a lesbian writer in the 1950s, struggling to sell a novel with lesbian main characters that get a happy end at a time when putting your name on a comic book would be career suicide. And now in 2023 we get to read about it in a comic book crafted by two queer women, that features a problematic queer lead and won an Eisner award this year.