Strangers on a Train

"The Talented Mr. Ripley gets all the love, but Strangers on a Train is the one I think everyone should focus on. It was also turned into a movie by Hitchcock in 1951, which is also phenomenal. So, in Strangers on a Train , two strangers meet on a train and have a conversation about how their lives would be easier if—as one character says—someone killed his mom. The other is like: yeah, if somebody just killed my ex-wife, things would be so much easier for me. One of these men thinks it’s all a joke, a ridiculous conversation, but the other takes it seriously. Deadly serious. It’s an idea that could be very goofy, and there have been movies that have played out the silly side of that storyline, like Horrible Bosses . But Patricia Highsmith can capture the internal workings of a dark character amazingly well, and create that kind of flow—plotting an element of impending doom—really, really well. What I love is that she sets up quite a simple device, and then you are just waiting for terrible things to happen, for it all to unfold. She’s really good at creating that suspense. Strangers on a Train is a really special one—both the book and the movie, which have slightly different endings."

"I remember reading this when I was in high school. It was a book that I had heard lots of other people recommend. I just liked the title—strangers on a train—what could that possibly mean? Now we’ve had lots of books since like Girl on a Train and things like that. It seems like trains are great places to either witness really bad things happening or plot really bad acts. Patricia Highsmith is known for being one of the greatest psychological thriller writers of all time. The plot for Strangers on a Train is not as complicated as you might think it would otherwise be. But it’s really driven by the characterisations of the main protagonists. You have two people from vastly different types of life. You have a very competent and educated architect in Guy Haines. And then you have the psychopathic rich boy, Bruno. They meet on a train; it’s just happenstance, and I think that draws people in. It drew me in because it talked to me about the randomness of choices and how one person has a little bit of information and all of a sudden you’re in a terrible situation. In Cold Blood speaks of the very same thing: just a random act, one person telling another person, “Hey, this guy has a bunch of money on a Kansas farm—you might want to get it,” and it turns out that not only is there no money but a horrible crime is committed because of it. “Patricia Highsmith is known for being one of the greatest psychological thriller writers of all time” In Strangers on a Train , two men come together and the only commonality they share is they both have problems with people in their lives: Guy’s adulterous wife, who he wants to leave in order to marry the woman he loves, and Bruno’s overbearing father. So, they strike up this deal to take on each other’s murder. You think who in the world would do this? Particularly an educated man, a seemingly normal, reasonable guy like the architect. But emotion can make people do things. In this book, with Haines at least, after Bruno did what he did, he wouldn’t let it go. I think if Haines could have figured his way out of it and gone on with his life, then he would have. But Highsmith really plays her ace in the hole, and that’s guilt—the guilt that people feel. So, after Guy does what he has to do—kills Bruno’s father—he can never get over that. The episode in the book where Guy attempts to save Bruno’s life is really a final dagger in the heart. He confesses to his wife’s lover and the detective overhears. It’s not the greatest way to end the book, having someone eavesdrop rather than having a detective figure it out, although Guy was certainly on the suspect chain. But really, it was a remarkable study of human beings in all their complexity. A lot of mysteries in television shows and books are about people who want to get out of a situation. How many shows have you watched on television like Law and Order where a husband kills his wife, or a wife kills her husband, and the first thing you ask yourself is: have they never heard of divorce?! Just get divorced and go back to business! But there are complicating factors where there’s just rage, anger, money, and kids involved. Strangers on a Train just speaks to the randomness of human events, how people can rationalise anything and how guilt can drive you to incredibly bad deeds that you’d never otherwise have contemplated."