People Who Knock on the Door

by Patricia Highsmith

Book Overview

With the savage humor of Evelyn Waugh and the macabre sensibility of Edgar Allan Poe, Patricia Highsmith brought a distinct twentieth-century acuteness to her prolific body of fiction. In her more than twenty novels, psychopaths lie in wait amid the milieu of the mundane, in the neighbor clipping the hedges or the spouse asleep next to you at night. Now, Norton continues the revival of this noir genius with another of her lost masterpieces: a later...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393322432
• ISBN13: 9780393322439
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Door to Door

"People Who Knock on the Door" may seem like a departure from the typical Patricia Highsmith fare. It is a story about the changes that occur in one family throughout the course of one year, a simple enough plot, but one filled with the sense of unease that proliferates Highsmith's writing. The novel is almost narrowly and simplistically focused at the beginning, but branches off as the story progresses, leaving readers unsure as to where to align themselves. The novel opens rather vaguely, as Highsmith isn't one to state the obvious directly. The reader meets seventeen-year-old Arthur Alderman at the end of his senior year, ready to attend Columbia in the fall. When his fifteen-year-old brother Robbie becomes seriously ill, their father becomes a born-again Christian, suddenly devout to the Lord and expecting the same from his family. Arthur cannot align himself with his father's beliefs; he views his father as a hypocrite, a man who has preached the value of money all his life suddenly changing his beliefs and forcing his family to feel the same way. Arthur's mom goes along with this new life, in order to keep the peace, while his brother Robbie believes hook, line and sinker to the point of obsession. When Arthur will not change his ways to suit his father, his father refuses to pay for college and kicks Arthur out of the house. Arthur's father cannot seem to see the damage he is creating in his own family, and when disaster strikes close to home and the tables are turned, it may be too late to reverse the changes he has wrought. Highsmith spends a lot of the narrative following Arthur through his first year of college; it is a well-drawn portrait, but one that lacks the vividness of her best creations. Arthur rarely comes to life off the page, and that applies to the other characters as well. The story is somewhat predictable, the reader can easily guess most of what will unfold, but Highsmith is talented enough to maintain the suspense, subtly crafting cracks in Arthur's story. I found myself disliking the main character in the end; despite tragedy, he gets virtually everything he wants, but is he on the right side of the issues Highsmith writes about? And that is where the genius of "People Who Knock on the Door" lies - in the twists that take the reader from seeing everything from Arthur's perspective to questioning his ability to relate the story at hand.

Third-person Highsmith

This is an interesting work, if you're familiar with other Patricia Highsmith novels - and by "interesting," it is that it's not technically a crime novel (i.e., it's not the major theme of the novel), it's another display of the range of her capabilities, rather; also, that when the crime is committed, it's not from the person from whom we're watching the events through - it's sort of a third-person crime, in this way. And not for the usual reason. (I'll leave it there so that, even though another reviewer has told you who the killer is, the novel hasn't been completely blown for you.) "People Who Knock on the Door" is still a very readable novel, since the differences don't really detract from the reading - it has the same storytelling style of other Highsmith novels, and is not a labor to read for it. If you're looking for a DEEP WATER/THIS SWEET SICKNESS-esque suburban psychopath tale, you may find it slow and ultimately disappointing. (It is, however, rather like EDITH'S DIARY.) But if you aren't, read on!

Third-person Highsmith

This is an interesting work, if you're familiar with other Patricia Highsmith novels - and by "interesting," it is that it's not technically a crime novel (i.e., it's not the major theme of the novel), it's another display of the range of her capabilities, rather; also, that when the crime is committed, it's not from the person from whom we're watching the events through - it's sort of a third-person crime, in this way. And not for the usual reason. (I'll leave it there so that, even though another reviewer has told you who the killer is, the novel hasn't been completely blown for you.) "People Who Knock on the Door" is still a very readable novel, since the differences don't really detract from the reading - it has the same storytelling style of other Highsmith novels, and is not a labor to read for it. If you're looking for a "Deep Water"/"This Sweet Sickness"-esque suburban psychopath tale, you may find it slow and ultimately disappointing. But if you aren't, read on!

Today, on "Surburbian Hell with Highsmith"

Patricia Highsmith pulls a one-two punch on readers with her disturbing "People Who Knock on the Door." The first punch aims at modern Christianity. The second aims at every reader who thought the first punch was aimed at modern Christianity. The story is centered around Arthur, a recent high-school graduate, and the problems he has concerning his family. His father has recently become a Christian - a Bible-thumping, "Amen"-shouting believer. Because his children have not been raised in a Christian home, the father's conversion tears the family apart, and traditional Highsmith violence ensues. Is Highsmith praising or satirizing modern Christianity? Her opinion is seemingly obvious, because the book is almost completely one-sided...or is it? It, in fact, is not one-sided at all. Patricia Highsmith brilliantly pokes fun at herself - and at everyone ready to criticize her - by ultimately making the novel a farce. A very dark farce, mind you, but a farce nonetheless. The "villain" character is extremely one-sided, as is the protagonist. And because of how the book ends, the reader tends to view Highsmith as one-sided, also. In the end, neither side wins: If you're the Christian, Highsmith has pulled the wool over your eyes by getting you to read the book in the first place - you should be reading the Bible, you hypocrite. If you "agree" with her supposed views toward Western Religion, she pulled the wool over your eyes, too - you have become the cynical Arthur...it's easy to point fingers when you're the protagonist, huh? I have come to expect sharp thrillers from Patricia Highsmith. "People Who Knock on the Door" is more than a thriller...it is a razor-sharp dark comedy that succeeds on every level.

A teenager's worst nightmare.

How would you feel if you are a teenager living a perfect an normal teenager life in the mid-west of the U.S.A and suddenly your father turns a little weird? Well, all teenagers think that their parents are a little weird, but in Arthur's case he has a good reason to be scared. Little by little his father is turning into a religious fanatic. This Patricia Highsmith novel was first published in 1983 and follows the line that she began with Edith's Diary were all the suspense lies in the cotidianity of the characters trapped in a world of madness and desesperation. What and when did it go wrong? Why couldn't I prevent it? When will it be normal again? To Patricia Highsmith, hell really exists, at least in this life.