Strangers on a Train by Highsmith - Patricia (1999) Paperback

I saw the Alfred Hitchcock movie just prior to buying the book. The movie is outstanding, but the book is even better!! Even though it was written in 1950, it translate well into today. Definitely worth reading.

This is another Patricia Highsmith novel with crisp and beautiful writing that has a strong charge to it. Her works are often described as being in the suspense and mystery genres, but these are really exacting drawings of motivations and thinking in a criminal context. She is the best.

I found the dialog between the two potential accomplices in the train was the best part of the book. The descriptions of the murders were OK, but we've read plenty of those in other books. The thing I found frustrating was the exploration of the characters. I'm still not sure whether Patricia Highsmith was trying to tell us there was homosexuality to explain the attraction between the two main characters. Did I miss something ? Personally, I don't care, but I wish she'd get on with it and let us know one way or the other. Perhaps the book is showing its age...

great read. Highsmith is a master of tension, the gradual losing of one's center and sanity at the hands of a madman. sometimes the madman is tom ripley, sometimes its a stranger on a train. read it quick and enjoy the gradual unraveling of the protagonist.

Although this is a classic psycho mystery and a movie was made of the book, I really did not like the two main characters and thought they were creepy. Our book group was very divided about the book, so perhaps if one enjoys psychological novels it would be more to their liking.

“People, feelings, everything! Double! Two people in each person. There's also a person exactly the opposite of you, like the unseen part of you, somewhere in the world, and he waits in ambush.”

This is the classic story that Alfred Hitchcock used to make his movie “Strangers on a Train” and it still resonates today. It’s a film noir story about the basest parts of being human and how no matter how good you are; anyone can accept evil and change their life course.

Guy Haines meets Charlie Bruno on a train and allows himself to be seduced into telling him his secret hatred of his unfaithful wife. Bruno tells him of his hatred of his father and then tells him they should make a bargain and kill each other’s nemesis so there will be no ties to the two of them and their victims.

The next thing Guy knows is that his wife is dead and with dread, he realizes Bruno wasn’t just making small talk on the train but doing what they said. Soon Bruno is forcing Guy to follow through on his part of the bargain, or Bruno will tell his employer and his girlfriend what they had done.

I loved the suspenseful buildup in this novel and the emerging dread when Guy decides to follow through. Guy’s change from being an upstanding genius Architect, to his decline and fall into the depths of evil, which he begins to enjoy make the novel unique and powerful. It’s only his love of Ann that keeps him sane and able to function in the real world. Then Charlie introduces himself to Ann and Guy is doomed.

This is a great mystery suspense novel and I highly recommend it. It was Patricia Highsmith’s debut novel.

Strangers on a Train is the classic 1950 novel by Patricia Highsmith that most people probably didn't know was the basis for Hitchcock's movie of the same name. It's a fascinating story, and is quaint in its contemporary depiction of technology as it relates to all things involved with travel, communication and engineering. It's a great step back in time.

The story is wonderfully classic, though it may not seem a bit dated by current standards. This may sound strange, but I found the progression of the story to follow the same track as someone who becomes addicted to a drug and sees their life impacted by it in so many different ways. I won't go into too many details of that description in order to preserve the storyline and prevent spoilers, but I couldn't help reflecting on the analogy at various times in the novel.

The ending was not what I was expecting, but I felt was very appropriate. I don't think many people will like the ending, but I thought it was refreshing and made sense for where the story was heading.

Audiobook note: Bronson Pinchot did a wonderful job narrating the story, giving distinct voices to the sophisticated architect Guy Haines, while portraying the bumbling alcoholic Charles Bruno with the slurred, spoiled affectations appropriate for his character. All in all, a wonderful performance.

In Patricia Highsmith's first novel, architect Guy Haines meets psychopath Charles Bruno on a train to Texas. Bruno isn't the kind of lunatic who instantly terrifies people. He just comes off as a little odd at first. In the course of a long conversation on the train, Guy reveals his troubles with his estranged wife, and Bruno discusses his hatred of his father.

Bruno likes to read detective novels, and he mentions, off-hand at first, how it would be the perfect crime if two strangers who met on a train were to exchange murders. Bruno could kill Guy's wife and Guy could kill Bruno's father, and no one would ever be able to solve the crimes, because no one knows Guy and Bruno ever met, and neither has a motive to kill someone they don't know. Guy dismisses the idea and walks away, but Bruno becomes obsessed with it.

[Some spoilers from here down.]

Though it has its moments as a traditional thriller, in which the excitement comes from action and physical danger, the bulk of the book is a psychological thriller, in which we see more and more of Bruno's terrifying madness and Guy's slow and agonizing moral, mental, and emotional breakdown. Highsmith is especially good at portraying the inner psychological torment of a man sliding into moral corruption, and how his sense of guilt begins to poison not only his perception of the world, but his interactions with it as well.

Guy's decline is especially vivid and painful when measured against the clear, steady conscience of his fiance Anne, who, though wise and worldly, is also pure of mind. You don't see the true destructive power of evil until you see the value of what it destroys, and Highsmith does a good job of portraying that in showing the deterioration of a deep and healthy relationship.

I do think the book could have used some editing, but I also see why it's a classic. Many crime and mystery writers after Highsmith included psychopathic characters just to have a deranged mind in the mix to provide some thrills and plot twists. Not many have shown so clearly and with such depth how evil slowly infects and corrupts all it touches, or how the ordinary weaknesses of ordinary people make them so susceptible to its influence.

Another of charismatic author Patricia Highsmith's cheery stories... no seriously, another of usually personally unliked author Highsmith's dark stories. It is well-written and there's almost nothing that could have possibly been edited out. I always think a book is of superior quality if nothing could be removed without losing a lot. There are no overly long descriptions or unneeded scenes. This is one of two of her novels that was adapted to film (the other being 'The Talented Mr. Ripley'). In the film the only major change was that Guy was made a tennis player instead of an architect, no doubt because that would be more suspenseful in the film art form. Besides that nothing was changed and the film is as good as the book. And neither disappoints.
Strangers on a Train

Paperback (edit)

review
Architect Guy Haines is on a train to Texas to see his estranged wife Miriam to discuss their divorce. Before long Charles Bruno, a rich n'er do well, sits down opposite him. Haines talks about his problems with Miriam and Bruno talks about his hatred for his father. Before long Bruno makes a suggestion: the two men should "exchange murders". That is, Bruno should kill Miriam and Haines should kill Bruno's dad - and having no demonstrable motive - neither man will be suspected. Haines strongly opposes this scheme, refuses to participate, and goes on his way. Before long, however, Bruno tracks Miriam down and murders her. He then proceeds to stalk Haines and insert himself into Haine's life at every opportunity - pressuring him to carry out his part of the plan. To say any more would be a spoiler. The book is a well-crafted psychological thriller with believable well-rounded characters. I wanted to jump into the book and shout at Haines to "get that nutcase out of your life" but of course that would have spoiled the plot. I enjoyed the book. And Alfred Hitchcock made it into an excellent film as well

Patricia Highsmith's novels demonstrate time and again the mastery that the author had in creating characters that readers had trouble liking, but also had trouble rooting against. The most famous of her characters is the completely amoral killer, Tom Ripley, whose escapades are hideous, but the reader always wants to see Tom get away with it. That same contradiction of spirit is at play in "Strangers on a Train", where the lives of two complete strangers intersect randmonly, but are forever inextricably bound.

Guy Haines is a rising star in the world of architecture. He is deeply in love with an artist named Anne, and they plan to marry, when the only obstacle in their way becomes final - his divorce from his first wife, Miriam. Yet Miriam makes it clear that she isn't going to go away very easily, and Guy feels everything slipping away from him. On the train down to Texas to demand a divorce from Miriam, Guy meets Charles Bruno, a young directionless man, who believes he has found a kindred spirit in Guy Haines. Guy wants little to do with Bruno, especially when the talk turns to murder and Bruno's plot for the perfect motiveless murder; he will kill Guy's wife Miriam, if Guy kills the father that he loathes. Disgusted, Guy leaves Bruno (without agreeing to the plan), but when Miriam is found strangled within the next two weeks, Guy dreads that Bruno is behind it, and that Bruno will not let him rest until Guy has lived up to his end of the "bargain".

"Strangers on a Train" is deftly written, shifting back and forth in narrative between Guy's struggles to maintain a normal life and Bruno's increasingly drunken descent into madness. The mood is encapsulated by Guy's fear as Bruno haunts his every moment, driving him to think and act in ways he thought impossible. Patricia Highsmith is a master storyteller, having created stories that ask unpleasant questions and reveal the unpleasantness that lies within everyone.

The Fiction Writer should put tension on every page of a novel, in every scene, and select every word to forward that tension. Patricia Highsmith's debut novel, Strangers on a Train, could be a textbook to these principles. From the first line, "The train tore along with an angry irregular rhythm." she keeps the reader off balance and anticipating with dread every new scene. It's fantastic.

On a train, Guy Haines sits next to Charles Anthony Bruno. Bruno forcefully intrudes on architect Guy's life and then proposes a unique solution for Guy's marital quandary, Bruno will kill Miriam, Guy's wife if Guy kills Bruno's father; neither of them will have a motive, and the police will have no reason to suspect either of them. Then Guy can marry Anne Morton, the woman he loves and Guy can get his inheritance. Perfect, brilliant, and insane.

The true plot isn't in this scenario, however. The true plot is in Guy feeling trapped by circumstance, seeing half the plan realized and then being forced to comply, to murder, to embrace the idea after initially rejecting it, and then wracked with guilt over all the turns and twists in this complex noir story. The true plot is Guy searching to moralize his deed. It's Guy reaching for his soul.

Hitchcock missed the mark with this one. The movie was good, but is only a shadow of the book's well-crafted tale.

- CV Rick

What's interesting is the powerful difference between this novel and Hitchcock's film version. In the novel, Guy Haines is an architect rather than a tennis pro (the film), but this is not the main difference. Without giving anything away, there is a major difference plotwise, and if you read the novel AFTER having seen the film (as I did), your jaw drops open at how big a difference this really is.

While Hitchcock's film is a great cinematic classic, Highsmith's novel is, I think, an even better piece of work overall. She is an absolute master of psychological nuance and digs so deep into the Guy Haines character that the reader is absolutely riveted to the page. So too does she dig into the character of the antagonist, Charles Anthony Bruno, and this as well keeps you turning page after page.

As most people probably know by now, the story is of criss-crossing murders whose idea first emerges when the two main characters meet by chance on a train and eventually Bruno proposes to Haines--after sneakily drawing out the particulars of the latter's family situation--that each kill the one person most in the way of the other person's happiness.

Highsmith's prose is way ahead of its time; the novel was published in 1951 and reads like it could have been published at least 25 years later, if not more. This was, in fact, her first published work.

I dare you to start reading this and put it down for any length of time. You can't.

After an aborted reading attempt of Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley some years ago – my first proper read of the author.
I did have a look at the book initially – 250-odd pages and think, okay – biff, bang, bosh – two days reading job done. Well Pat from Texas soon put pay to that notion. I read it from the 13th until the 23rd at an average of 25 pages a day. Each time I put the book down, I felt absolutely exhausted.

Tough writing, tough to read, she forces you to pay attention and concentrate on every word. Maybe I‘m usually a lazy reader and I only skim-read, I don’t know.

Enjoyed? No, more like endured.

Plot – amazing premise – two strangers meet on a train and kill for each other. No motive – the perfect crime.

Pace – pedestrian, leaden-footed.

Characters – Charles Bruno – slightly more interesting than Guy Haines. There’s an air of manic unpredictability about him. He seems to oscillate between wanting to either screw his mother or Guy Haines or maybe both at the same time – which would have made for a slightly more interesting book. Guy Haines – the somewhat unwilling participant in our scheme – idealistic and weak. I kind of wished he had missed that train and then I could have been spared all that followed.

I’m fairly sure Highsmith and psychological suspense and drama is not my thing, but I suppose I’ll have to try another from her to confirm. I previously thought when discarding Ripley, it was a case of right book, but the wrong time - it may well be there is no right time.

Overall - not great - though the ending was a wee bit better than what had come before, albeit somewhat predictable. I was a bit unconvinced at Markham’s capacity to assist our dogged detective Gerard in unmasking Guy. He seemed too slow-witted for such duplicity.

A generous 3 from 5

Bought second hand several years ago, possibly after suffering some kind of concussion which temporarily relieved me of my senses.

Patricia Highsmith's "Strangers on a Train" came out in 1950, attaining prompt bestseller status and intriguing filmdom's master of intrigue, Alfred Hitchcock, enough to fashion a film around it which was released one year later. Highsmith jolted readers with her gripping realism, taking a basically simple but clever plot and carving out something much more.
Highsmith's book focuses on two men in their twenties, Charlie Bruno and Guy Haines. The former is of great New York wealth, but is troubled and is headed for cataclysmic disaster, which he appears eager to reach fast through his alcoholic dissipation and all-purpose troublemaking. The latter has worked his way upward from a modest, middle class background in his native Texas to become one of America's premier architects before reaching his thirtieth birthday.
Under normal circumstances these individuals would probably never cross paths, but fate intervenes when they travel on the same train and meet as a result of the extroverted Bruno forcing himself on the more introspective Haines, who does not want to appear rude. When Bruno learns that Haines is faced with an unpleasant divorce situation in dealing with a promiscuous wife, the inebriated Bruno jolts his more stable traveling companion by suggesting that they swap murders. Someone who avidly reads mystery books, Bruno states that they would each perform a perfect crime since they would each be killing total strangers and there is nothing to link them to their victims. Bruno wants Haines to kill his father, who is standing in the way of his getting access to the family wealth. The reason for his hatred of his father is also linked to his slavish devotion to his mother, who is seen as a quasi-deity to the troubled young man.
Haines leaves the compartment when Bruno is sleeping off his drinking, convinced he will never hear from him again. He does, and under the most frightening circumstances. Highsmith has such a brilliant penchant for plotting mystery that no more will be given away, except to say that the psychological currents and cross-currents put readers squarely into the picture. The author forces the reader to make judgments of their own about life and death, and how we deal with each, and how authority is correlated with society. Are the two in opposition to each other? This is one of the probing questions she asks mainly through the interactions of the characters.
Highsmith could be referred to as an American Dostoyevsky. Just as the great nineteenth century Russian author probed the inner mind and the dimensions of guilt within the framework of someone who has taken a human life, the American touches those same roots in an atmosphere of chilling suspense. Bruno and Haines are characters fastened indelibly into the mind after reading Highsmith's explosive novel.

"The train tore along with an angry irregular rhythm."
The first sentence of Patricia Highsmith's 1951 first novel, Strangers on the Train, evokes emotion and mystery on so many levels, just like her stories and novels work on so many levels. Highsmith's catalog, laden with unpredictability, tension, apprehension, strangeness and irrational viewpoints are classics ripe for a celebrated re-emergence
Norton has accepted the challenge with an announced 15-book initiative that should eventually bring nearly all of her work back into print. The initial release includes as the cornerstone a weighty volume of over 60 short stories written throughout her career, now collected together for the first time: The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith. Also re-released in trade paperback are novels Strangers on the Train and A Suspension of Mercy.
True mystery takes the reader into an unpredictable, twisted and scary world. Highsmith writes true mystery. This is most certainly NOT the formula PI novel with a simpleton murder and nice and neat search for the culprit. Highsmith doesn't rely on simple cat and mouse tension. Instead, she's a master of an unpredictable world, a cold and dark place where even you, the reader, are capable of murder. These are not feel-good works. The good guy usually loses, (that is if you can find a good guy). But the reader wins big because the work is so utterly interesting. Highsmith can rightly be called a master.
Strangers on a Train is a terrific introduction to Highsmith's work. Her first, and one of her finest novels, was the source for Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1953 film. From the opening sentence, the book works on many levels. Highsmith delights in surfacing the unsettled forces that lurk inside of the average person, in this case a passenger on a routine train journey.
What are the triggers that cause a seemingly average man to murder? What is good and what is evil? What is normal? Highsmith paints a picture that stretches the imagination to answer these questions in ways we never thought possible. She disturbs you. And she does it in a totally entertaining way.
David Meerman Scott
Author of Eyeball Wars: a novel of dot-com intrigue

Bruno was not the ordinary stranger on a train by any means. -Strangers on a Train
The world of Patricia Highsmith is one in which the nice young man you ask to help find your son may instead kill him and take his place, where the cop you ask to help find your missing dog may turn out to be just as disturbed as the dognapper, and where the stranger you meet on a train may be a complete sociopath. In this, her first novel, famously made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock, Guy Haines wants to divorce his estranged wife, Miriam, and has finally been presented with the pretext for doing so, as she's pregnant by another man. This will enable him to marry Ann and enjoy his burgeoning success as an architect. But then he meets a talkative stranger named Bruno, Charles Bruno, on a train. Bruno, the ne'er do well son of wealthy parents, wants to get rid of his father, who refuses to indulge Bruno's lazy but expensive lifestyle. He shares his troubles with Guy who in turn makes the mistake of telling Bruno about Miriam. As fate would have it, Bruno has an idea for the perfect murder, actually a double murder : two strangers could "swap" murders, each killing the person that the other wishes done away with, which would make the crimes seem motiveless, and therefore nearly impossible to solve.
Guy is quite naturally put off by the suggestion, though perhaps not as entirely as he should be. No matter how much he hates Miriam, the prospect of the divorce blunts his desire to see her dead. But when she finds out how important his pending commission is, and that his career is poised to take off, she decides not to let him go. Meanwhile, Bruno takes matters into his own hands, quite literally, and suddenly Guy is implicated in a murder whether he wants to be or not.
The book is significantly different than the film, so even fans of the movie will be in for a new experience. For Highsmith fans there's all the expected creepiness, from the threatening possibilities of every day life to homosexual undertones to the plasticity of identity, as Guy has essentially become Bruno by novel's end. Whatever depths of depravity she contained within herself to draw upon, no one has ever written better about the criminally deranged mind than Patricia Highsmith.
GRADE : A-

In many of her thrillers, Patricia Highsmith's primary characters fall into two categories: the unrepentant evil, and the weak-willed who are swept up in their evil. In fact, the line between villain and hero is often quite blurred in her stories in which innocence or good intentions are no protection. For this reason Highsmith is often compared to Ruth Rendell, whose chilling novels of psychological suspense also center around the destruction of unsuspecting innocence caught in the net of evil.

Strangers on a Train starts, suitably, on a train hurtling towards Texas, when young Guy Haines, budding architect, is caught up in a conversation with young Charles Anthony Bruno, inebriated and charming scion of a wealthy family. Pretty soon it becomes apparent that Charles is up to no good as he proposes that he and Guy become partners in the perfect crime. Charles says that if he kills Guy's unloving wife and Guy kill's Charles nasty father, both killers will get away scot free since there will be no way a motive can be proved or the killer traced. Guy, appalled by the plan, but too drunk to know how to firmly reject it, leaves Charles, thinking the whole scheme will blow over in the morning. What Guy doesn't know is that Charles is a psychopath, completely amoral, and drawn to the handsome Guy in ways that neither can fully or willingly comprehend.

This story is exciting, tense and disturbing, even when we know who will commit the crimes well before the novel has ended. Part of the excitement comes from Highsmith's skillful handling of character, setting, and dialogue that make even the improbable storyline seem grimly possible. There is even a kind of dark humor that moves the story along when the stomach-churning suspense draws a brief breath. And although written more than 60 years ago, Strangers on a Train still seems very current, perhaps because Highsmith's insight into a certain type of warped human personality and behavior can be found in every era of human history, including our own.

Only Cornell Woolrich equals Highsmith in creating characters who are beset from all directions: pursued to destruction by multiple external and internal forces. The tension of Strangers... is relentless; the action constantly unsettling. Much of the tension is contributed by the loose-cannon character of Bruno. He is constantly on the verge of destroying everyone around him. He is a wonderfully portrayed madman. I found Guy's loyalty to him hard to understand. Why doesn't he hope for Bruno to just disappear? Why doesn't he kill Bruno? Quibbles aside, this is a superb page-turner that is also a work of art.

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1991) was among the most lauded of the "noir" writers, an author who published over twenty books and won such prestigious prizes as the O. Henry Memorial Award and the Edgar Allan Poe Award. But in spite of her tremendous fame in Europe, she did not win fame in her native United States until after death, when the 1999 film version of her 1955 novel THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY at last brought her work the recognition it had long deserved.

The 1950 novel STRANGERS ON A TRAIN was Highsmith's first novel, and the premise was so intriguing that no less than legendary director Alfred Hitchcock snapped up the movie rights and turned it into one of his most admired films. The Hitchcock film is a classic of its kind--but even so the novel was both too hot and too dark to be filmed "as is" in the repressive 1950s. Readers who come to the book from the film are in for a surprise.

The very famous point on which the plot turns, however, is the same. Two men, Guy and Bruno, meet by chance on a train and pass the time in conversation. Each reveals to the other that a specific person stands in the way of happiness: for Guy, it is a wayward wife who refuses to give him a divorce; for Bruno it is a stubborn father who refuses him money. When Bruno playfully suggests that he will kill the wife for Guy if Guy will kill the father for Bruno it seems like a bad-taste joke... But Guy will soon discover there is nothing to laugh about at all.

From this opening salvo Highsmith unwinds and rewinds her plot in a manner distinctly different from the Hitchcock film, and even today the book is best known for its fiendish storyline. But it is the characters that make it work, and Bruno emerges as one of the most brilliantly constructed psychopaths of 20th Century fiction. By turns comic, pitiful, stupid, and witty, Bruno's insignificant veneer masks a truly deadly turn of mind. The all-American-honest Guy is no less memorable as his personality slowly but surely deteriorates under Bruno's pressure, and even the most minor of characters pop and sizzle with life under Highsmith's pen.

Although long out of print in the United States, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is back with a vengeance--and the icy, direct, and darkly comic tone of the novel sets it among the best of Highsmith's remarkable work. Recommended.

GFT, the store Reviewer
In Memory of Ellen R. Smith, 1920-2005
Virtuoso Pianist and Good Friend

This is the author's highly acclaimed debut novel. Two men, an architect, Guy Haines, and a psychopath, Charles Bruno, meet on a train to swap murders. Charles will kill Guy's wife Miriam and Guy will kill Charles's father. A chance meeting and a rash conversation will trap Guy Haines, almost against his will, in a nightmare. This is a cunningly plotted melodrama and I read it with thorough enjoyment. Alfred Hitchcock shot a film baring the same name and the movie is equally thrilling. Classic suspense is still the best in my view!
In this audiobook, Mr William Roberts reads Patricia Highsmith's "Strangers on a Train" with plenty of enthusiasm and I enjoyed his voice very much. He manages to adapt his intonation beautifully according to the situation, at times tense, then hilarious, then serious again. A great performance.

After reading the Ripley novels, I thought I'd venture into Highsmith's other work -- and started here. Although, at first, her familiar writing style (less polished as the later Ripley books...but that's relative as the narrative is fantastic) drove my thoughts into the Ripley world...she quickly sets up her own world of an untapped but modern west and everyday people problems.

Meeting people while traveling is always a random, exciting, yet nervous experience...while not too much heavy mile travel happens on a train, the same principle applies to today's air travel.

You want to like Bruno -- and to the very last page I was continually trying. That type of indecision that Highsmith gives her reader is exactly why her books are addicting. Page-turners, except you don't want to speed through the pages. The prose, dialogue, and subtle details attract you to each page...unlike the speed-read novels that blanket the top 10 lists today.

A fantastic and imaginative plot. Two men, one a brilliant architect and the other a neurotic, alcoholic, misogynist, psychopath meet on the train, develop a strange friendship, and one can easily guess troubles ahead. Bruno, the alcoholic rich dilettante, makes an offer to Guy over dinner with plenty of Scotch. He volunteers to kill Guy's estranged wife, if Guy would return the favor by murdering Bruno's hated father. Guy is shocked and revolted by the casualness and matter of fact tone of the proposal. Little did he guess that Bruno would fulfill his end of the bargain and blackmail Guy to go though with his.

It is a story reminiscent of Crime & Punishment, Les Miserable, which deal mainly with human frailties, conscience, morality, society at large, guilt and redemption. Guy duels with himself and the good finally prevails and he confesses.

It is a classic page turner with panache.

I cannot believe that A) only one the store customer has written areview of this book or that B) it is out of print! WHAT! This is,quite simply, one of the finest novels I have ever read. It was as tough to put down as any other book I've encountered, and at times as profound as Shakespeare. I've yet to discover any other writer besides Highsmith whose books are both absolutely riveting and thoroughly penetrating about the human condition. At times, it was so suspenseful I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The only other experience I've had in life that was as ravaging as this book is sex. Yet despite its at-times horrifying suspense, it is excruciatingly compassionate; the ending made me weep. Highsmith's characters are unbelievably real; I still can't figure out how she makes us care so much about people who are so flawed and sinful. It's as close to the divine as a writer can get. WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE PUT THIS BOOK BACK IN PRINT SO I CAN GIVE A COPY TO EVERYONE I KNOW! END

This is Patricia Highsmith's first novel and as such it is good indicator of what an unusual novelist she would become. Many of her works demonstrate a tight structure and an economy of words, but not this one. It is peopled with too many characters not crucial to the plot. The plot is evidence of her genius for the perverse and over her writing career she would rework the main protagonists of "Strangers on a Train" to much greater affect such as seen in a later novel "A Dog's Ransom".
Alfred Hitchcock had great success with the movie version of "Strangers On A Train" in 1952 and it is regarded by film critics as one of his best movies. Hitchcock took many elements from the book but improved on the plot vastly and made the movie very interesting visually when he changes Guy's occupation from architect to tennis player.
This makes a great read when you follow up by watching the movie by the same name.

Yes. I realize that the book is usually better than the movie. "Strangers on A Train" is the exception to the rule. I was elated when the paperback came back into print. Perhaps my expectations were too high after reading "Those Who Walk Away". My basic complaint is that the book is too long: The reader will quickly realize that neither of the principal male characters, Bruno or Guy, are wrapped too tightly. The authoress devotes too much time and space in establishing that blatantly obvious fact. The story could easily have been shortened by 50 pages. The Hitchcock movie, at least the American version, concentrated on Guy's potential problems with the police. Highsmith chose to utilize a now you see him/now you don't private investigator. (Ineffectual police work is a recurring theme with the authoress, while the director was usually the opposite). I believe the authoress further lost her way when she decided to write "SOT" as a psychological tale rather than a straight crime story. I must acknowledge that the book is being held against a very high movie classic standard. Such comparisons are not completely fair to Ms. Highsmith, but they are also irresistible.

"Strangers on a Train" was a disappointment to me on a second reading. I had seen the Hitchcock movie classic again and read and immensely enjoyed all five of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley novels. For long sections of this book she is too diffuse and wordy. The book is tough sledding because the batty Bruno and dull, prosaic Guy are covered in so much detail. The book lacks the intensity and focus of the Ripley books.
This, her first novel, was published in 1950. The two strangers meet, and it is quickly apparent that Bruno is erratic, a drunkard, and a nut case. In the novel Guy is an architect rather than a tennis player. Bruno talks of "a pure murder, without personal motives." He wants to do something for his new friend so later he murders Guy's malicious wife Miriam. Then, of course, he haunts Guy demanding "the exchange of victims"--Bruno's father for Miriam.
Bruno gets Guy's fiancée Anne enmeshed as Guy falls into Bruno's web, becoming a slave to him. He horns into their wedding. She becomes fascinated by Bruno and even invites him to stay overnight in the guest room when Guy is away.
Highsmith used private detectives in the Ripley series, and she does so in this book with Gerald. He does a thorough job of investigating Bruno and Guy.
Highsmith suggests there may be an unconscious sexual side to the relationship between Guy and Bruno. They become metaphoric brothers ensnared by their crimes.
Because Bruno is such a loony tune, the book as it goes along seems less credible and more of a case study of a psychotic. Anne and Guy seem less believable also because of their irrational acts. Guy almost believes in the reality of "The primal pleasure in killing."
The book is ultimately a mishmash with some great lines and passages, but much goes amiss. As Highsmith honed her talents, one wonders if in her later career, she couldn't have turned this into a shorter, tighter, more credible suspense novel. See the movie, skip the novel.

It recently came to my attention that Patricia Highsmith authored The Talented Mr. Ripley. Since I had seen that movie, I knew I would want to check out her other books. First I read Deep Water, which was excellent. Then I read "Strangers..."
Highsmith had a very good knack for creating tension. It is hard to explain, but the dialogue somehow has you cheering on the antagonist. She does a very good job of making the reader feel the same emotion of the characters. Her style in character and plot development is slow and meticulous, as you would expect from a 50's author, but it is worth the effort.

SOAT has excellent parts but is severely bloated and suffers for its length. It's very tough to make it to the end. Hitchcock really handled the material well, and possibly better. The story would've been excellent at 1/2 the length.

Since I was commenting on a few Lesbian authors I thought I would include the best (mystery). I was rivited. Sure I saw the movie first, in this case, but that was so good it added. She is a great writer. I haven't read Carol yet. My fave of hers is Ripley.

This book's story epitomizes obsession, revenge and murder. When Guy Haines is manipulated into an unspoken but very deadly pact with the unbalanced Bruno, his life is suddenly turned upside down. The consequences of a chance meeting makes for an enthralling tale which the author has woven perfectly. Action and suspense is present throughout the book and I found it almost impossible to put down until the dramatic and exciting end.

"Strangers on a Train" is a little known classic that tampers with the standard hero-wins, bad-guy-loses-formula. Because of this, I feel cheated. I saw Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" before reading the book, and I only read it because I enjoyed the movie so much. I was amazed at how little the book and movie correlated. I had to force myself to not compare the two, but that is so hard to do since the movie is so much better, in my opinion. Hitchcock took unlikable characters and plots and turned it into something one could cheer for. I do applaud author Patricia Highsmith for making Bruno such a slimy character, but I do not applaud her for Guy Haines. I could not feel anything for him, and his radical and constant personal changes kept me out of the loop. I think the movie is better, but the book does hook you in. I "sorta" recommend.

Welcome to the tormented world of Guy Haines, an up-and-coming young architect snagged by a fateful meeting with Charley Bruno, a subtle sociopath. You will follow Guy as he is led by the nose by both Charles and his own moral turpitude down a path of both false and true guilt. Highsmith's suspenseful novel will keep you guessing right up to the last page when she tosses in a mind-boggling twist that will leave you gaping in disbelief.

"Stranger on a Train" is a really interesting book. It has a lot of crazy things in it and the main person is a real psychopath but I guess that's what makes the book so special. I like the idea that someone has an obsession and all he wants is to realize it. On the other hand I don't like the end of the novel too much since we don't know at all what will happen to Anne. But all in all it is a good novel and gives you some stuff to think about!