February 20th6:30pm
RSVP Required - see below
Join us for a walk on the wiiiiild side of crime fiction. We'll tour through the hardboiled classics of Chandler, Cain and Hammett; acquaint ourselves with contemporary masters like Ellroy and Mosley; international noir in translation; the fractured psyches of Thompson and Highsmith; even genre-bending experiments in horror and science-fiction!
We've got something to satisfy any and all tastes for all you darkly depraved delinquents.
This month we'll discuss a Patricia Highsmith's sinister, moody psychological novel, The Cry of the Owl.
Highsmith generates suspense out of a different sort of fear: not the fear of death, which drives most crime-centered entertainment, but the pettier, more intimate dread of humiliation, of being caught on the street with nothing on....There’s something else here, hard to identify, pulling us along relentlessly, as thrillers doan undertow, a surge of third-rail current.” -The New Yorker
One of her lesser-known works and one of her most unsettling. Which is saying plenty. The crime writer Elmore Leonard has written a host of novels with the same basic plot: Plans go wrong. The story message driving all of Highsmith’s work is similarly simple and clear: We live on thin ice. Highsmith revolts some readers, yet hypnotizes many others. She’s sui generis, a writer of almost occult power.” - Richard Rayner, Los Angeles Times
In a small Pennsylvania town, Robert Forrester is recuperating from a nasty divorce and a bout of psychological trouble. One evening, while driving home, he sees a pretty young woman framed by her bright kitchen window. Soon, he can't keep himself away. But when Robert is inevitably discovered, obsession is turned on its head, and he finds himself unable to shake the young woman, nor entirely sure whether he should. Recently made into a major motion picture starring Julia Stiles and Paddy Considine, The Cry of the Owl is essential Highsmith, a modern classic ready to be reborn.
Reserve your place with a $5 voucher, redeemable on the night of the book club meeting on any product in store.