7.6 /10 1 Votes
Language English Pages 251 Genre Thriller | 3.8/5 Goodreads Set in Suffolk, England Originally published 1965 Page count 251 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Works by Patricia Highsmith, Fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A Suspension of Mercy (1965) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith. It was published in the US under the title The Story-Teller later the same year by Doubleday. It was the eleventh of her 22 novels.
Contents
Composition
The protagonist's surname refers to Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and its enigmatic title character.
Synopsis
Sidney Bartleby is an American television scriptwriter living near Framlingham, Suffolk, England, who specialises in murder mysteries. To help find inspiration for story ideas, he fantasizes about killing his wife, Alicia, drawing up plans in great detail. With little warning she decides their relationship merits a trial separation. She leaves for a long holiday and he begins to let his imagination take his story ideas further. He begins to consider whether he might someday enact one of his plots in real life. When he finds Alicia with another man, he has the motive his scheme was lacking and the lines between fact and fiction blur.
Reception
In the New York Times, Anthony Boucher wrote: "It's a curious and absorbing novel, almost unique in its fantastic and ironic tone".
Highsmith's biographer Andrew Wilson calls this work "the author's most postmodern novel" and describes it as "a literary hall of mirrors in which reality and fiction are constantly reflected and, ultimately, confused".