Overview
A New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of the Year
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Named a Book We Loved by NPR
New York Times bestselling author Grace Ellis and illustrator Hannah Templer have teamed up to tell Patricia Highsmith’s story through her eyes—reimagining the events that inspired her to write The Price of Salt, the book that would become a foundational piece of queer literature. Flung Out of Space opens with Pat begrudgingly writing low-brow comics. A drinker, a smoker, and a hater of life, Pat knows she can do better. Her brain churns with images of the great novel she could and should be writing, what will eventually be Strangers on a Train, which would later be adapted into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.
At the same time, Pat, a lesbian consumed with self-loathing, is in and out of conversion therapy, leaving a trail of sexual conquests and broken hearts in her wake. However, one of those very affairs—and a chance encounter in a department store—give Pat the idea for her soon-to-be beloved tale of homosexual love that was the first of its kind: It gave the lesbian protagonists a happy ending.
This is not just the story behind a classic queer book but also of a queer artist who was deeply flawed. It’s a comic about what it was like to write comics in the 1950s, but also about what it means to be a writer at any time in history, struggling to find your voice.
Author Grace Ellis contextualizes Patricia Highsmith as both an unintentional queer icon and a figure whose problematic views and noted anti-Semitism have cemented her controversial legacy. Highsmith’s life imitated her art with results as devastating as the plot twists that brought her fame and fortune.
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