The Talented Mr. Ripley

In 1955, the concepts of true crime and psychological thriller were still quite nascent. Truman Capote’s masterwork of true crime, In Cold Blood, wouldn’t be published for another 11 years, while Daphne du Maurier’s original piece of psychological thriller writing, Rebecca, was dismissed by critics as a “here today, gone tomorrow” type of story. But Patricia Highsmith had a reputation behind her, having published The Price of Salt and Strangers on a Train; the resulting work, The Talented Mr. Ripley, has become one of the most iconic stories of identity theft and narrative mistrust of all time. On this episode, we’re breaking down the efforts of Tom Ripley to stand out, fit in and remain uncaught, along with chat about the 1999 film adaptation starring Matt Damon and an extremely tan Jude Law.