Grab the Lapels

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

Published in 1950, Strangers on a Train is a noir thriller that was made famous when Alfred Hitchcock turned it into a film. I’ll say that the movie disappointed me, especially because it is so different from the novel and loses all of the tension, but Hitchcock is known for mutilating authors’ novels and short stories in a way he finds satisfactory. Only Rebecca was saved by David O. Selznick, the producer, lurking around and keeping Hitch in line.





One mistake Hitch made is the actor playing Bruno is handsome. He should be a bloated drunk with a boil on his forehead.

Guy Haines, an architect, is on his way to Texas to get a divorce from Miriam, who has been sleeping around for years. They’ve been separated so long that Guy is engaged to Anne, but Miriam hasn’t finalized the divorce.

On the train, Guy randomly meets Charles Bruno, a drunken playboy who is possessive of his mother and hates his father. Bruno is both enigmatic and horrid, described as bloated, with pinkish eyes and a zit (or is it a boil?) on his forehead. But out of politeness — and Bruno’s dogged persistence that Guy hang out with him — Guy hangs out with him.

The more they drink, the looser their tongues become. Guy hates Miriam, who broke his heart and embarrasses him with her promiscuous behavior. Bruno hates his father, possibly because his father is a greedy non-entity who has sex with Bruno’s mother. Although Bruno doesn’t date or have sex in the novel, he’s concerned with who Guy and his mother are having sex with and wants them all for himself, which make the novel have both homoerotic and incestuous tones.

The reason I enjoy Strangers on a Train — I’ve read it three times and taught it in a freshman college lit course — is the slow creeping dread you feel. At first, you wonder if Guy can divorce the manipulative Miriam without fuss, but she’s more like Rebecca in Daphne du Maurier’s novel. Then, will Bruno kill Miriam and get away with it? What will Guy do if Miriam is killed, as it’s well known he hates her? It’s the way Highsmith trains her readers to hate someone before they are murdered, so you don’t feel too bad about it.

But much of Strangers on a Train is about guilt and ethics. Is mind-numbing guilt enough punishment for murder (or even just knowing the identity of a murderer)? Is prison time required? If society can’t murder people, then why can the law say people should be killed for a crime? Isn’t that murder? If society doesn’t care a lick that someone was murdered, is a punishment required? These are interesting questions. At first, I’m sure you thought murder is never justified, but what if the dead person was vile, a useless member of society, one who feels no love — a person no one misses at all?

On the contrary, Highsmith makes her obvious “good guys” clever. Anne, Guy’s fiance, for example. She’s an independent woman in 1950s America: interior decorator, smart, motivated to solve mysteries that interrupt her family life. She becomes the cat to Bruno’s mouse when she wants to know exactly what is going on. Anne is never a paper doll to be bopped around a play stage; she’s real.

There’s more I could go into: Bruno and Guy as opposites who are not so unalike; Guy and Bruno as possible lovers or brothers; Guy as innocent insect ensnared by Bruno the bored spider and his web of ambivalence about life having value. People write papers about the use of media (that was me). The focus on the metaphor of a train being unable to choose to leave its tracks, suggesting everything is inevitable. But I won’t. If you like a sense of foreboding in your literature, Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith is for you.

Published by Grab the Lapels

I'm a graduate of the MFA fiction writing program at the University of Notre Dame, which inspired me to follow along with trends in teaching, publishing, and reviewing. I also have an MA and BS from Central Michigan University. I used to teach composition, creative writing, and literature in higher education, then did a brief stint at a civic theater, followed by two years at a references desk at a public library. I'm now working toward my ASL Interpreter license.

18 comments

  2. Oohhh I always feel a bit of dread whenever I read about this book, it sounds like I would get a bit nervous reading it! I really want to see all these old Hitchcock movies, especially now that I’ve read Rebecca…even if the movies are worse, which I don’t doubt they are!

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  3. Great review, Melanie! I really enjoyed this book, more so than the film. Your comment about Highsmith making us hate someone before they get killed reminds me of the Hamish MacBeth mysteries … Death of a Gossip, Death of a Cad… every person who got murdered was absolutely horrible.

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    • Thanks, Laila. I feel like there is this lovely twist later in the novel when Guy is thinking about who actually cared that Miriam died, and there is someone (he thinks). So, even though you hate her, you start to remember that a manipulative person doesn’t deserve to die. Such good writing!

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  4. A sense of foreboding is the last thing I want when I’m reading and if I get tricked into watching that sort of movie I walk away. I am totally opposed to capital punishment – I don’t think society should ever kill people or turn a blind eye to killing. And if I were to kill someone to protect my family then I would accept my punishment. State sanctioned killing is always us and them, where the them is a lower class and often a darker skin colour.

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    • Yeah, I’m against the death sentence, solitary confinement, and trying minors as adults. I just don’t get how the science and psychology that completely supports banning solitary and trying minors as adults is ignored in courts. Of course, we’ve had several famous rape tirals lately at which young men who are NOT minors are let off because “they have their whole lives in front of them.”

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  5. “Hitchcock is known for mutilating authors’ novels and short stories in a way he finds satisfactory.” Brutal, and a perfect description of his work, which I’ve always found overrated and dull. In any case, looking forward to reading this even more after seeing your thoughts on it! I downloaded an audiobook containing this and The Price of Salt, though the performance of the latter really isn’t working for me. Highsmith’s style’s incredibly foreboding and gripping, and this sounds wonderful.

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    • Hitch had this tendency to really alter stories, and many of his movies were based on novels and short stories! I’m surprised that authors let him get away with it. du Maurier had several of her short stories turned into Hitchcock movies, so she must have liked something he was doing (or she signed off for him to use her stories after Rebecca, which honored the book because the producer wouldn’t leave rehearsal just to prevent Hitch from changing the script).

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  10. I’d forgotten the details of the story. I suspect PH has rather a dark heart at heart, quite a bitter soul. When I was younger and in a more confused and bleak mood she spoke to me. Not so much these days. Somehow the light got in I am very pleased to report 😎

    I love your words and aesthetics by the way.

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