Didn't Read It
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Whether you’re a literature nerd, a romance aficionado, or just Not That Into Books, there’s no denying that the “great works” of literature have played a part in influencing everything from public policy to superhero movies. If you’ve ever wanted to know whether that pretentious guy on Twitter is correct in referring to news stories as “Orwellian,” wondered what stories inspired shows like Bridgerton, or just been curious about why, exactly, your high school English teacher was so insistent about assigning books by Dead White Guys, Didn’t Read It is the podcast for you.
Didn't Read It
Patricia Highsmith Was a Terrible Dinner Guest: "Where the Action Is" and Art vs. Artist
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We're accidentally hip, for once in our lives! Just in time for Netflix's new adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, we're joined by pod bestie Leigh to talk about Highsmith's short story, "Where the Action Is." American grifts, snail obsessions, and bad authorial behavior abound!
As always, we are:
-Asking with all the love in our hearts that you leave us a review or tell a friend about the show <3
-Accepting friends @didntreadit on Instagram & Twitter
-Accepting nemesis applications at didntreaditpod@gmail.com
-Accepting academic scrutiny at didntreaditpod.com
-Thankful to Black Iris Social Club for use of their beautiful space
-Thankful to William Albritton for our incredible theme song, "Books"
-Thankful to Cast of Characters for our closing music, "Sneaksters."
When I talk for a long time, I definitely start spitting and a squirtin'I.
>> Grace Todd:Mean, look, we are already so close to just becoming a fetish podcast. The spittin the squirtin'do.
>> Leigh:It.
>> Grace Todd:Literary asmr. We ready? We feelin good?
>> Leigh:Yeah. Is that not convincing?
>> Grace Todd:No. Never better.
>> Leigh:Is it my dead eyes that give it away?
>> Grace Todd:We are both at the absolute pinnacle of our creative and official careers.
>> Leigh:Uh-huh.
>> Grace Todd:Everything is going well at home.
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah. Nothing is stressful.
>> Grace Todd:We are financially and existentially comfortable.
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah. Big time.
>> Grace Todd:We are beneficiaries of the patriarchy.
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Everything is coming up Milhouse.
>> Leigh:Big, big time. Big time. You say those affirmations. Manifestation.
>> Grace Todd:Hello, and welcome to didn't read it. The podcast that's hoping you won't realize it's an imposter with no real qualifications. Oh, please. I am your host, Grace Todd.
>> Leigh:it's okay, you know, that's enough.
>> Grace Todd:I'm here.
>> Leigh:You're enough.
>> Grace Todd:Thank you.
>> Leigh:You're welcome.
>> Grace Todd:who are you?
>> Leigh:I don't even know anymore. question for the ages. I'm Leigh, and I'm also here. And we're here together.
>> Grace Todd:And we're knuff.
>> Leigh:Gosh darn it.
>> Grace Todd:How you doing, babe?
>> Leigh:Oh, you know. Yep.
>> Grace Todd:We're having a banner week here.
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:At didn't read at headquarters.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:A podcast that definitely has a headquarters.
>> Leigh:Mm Mm We're in it.
>> Grace Todd:Yep. It belongs. It's ours.
>> Leigh:Yep. Uh-huh
>> Grace Todd:special thanks again to blackiris for letting us record. It's great.
>> Leigh:Beautiful, beautiful lair.
>> Grace Todd:It is a beautiful lair, and I like it very much. The furniture is nice. Yes, lovely furniture.
>> Leigh:Oh, the loveliest.
>> Grace Todd:The other members are very nice. They're friendly. I enjoy spending time here. It is not, however, like a headquarters as such. Not yet, but it is today.
>> Leigh:Yes. That's the attitude, Lee.
>> Grace Todd:Read anything good lately?
>> Leigh:Right now, I'm reading nonfiction. I'm reading the body is not an apology, which is great by, so Sonia Renee Taylor, I think is her name. It's great. Thinking about buying the accompanying workbook. Ooh, lovely. Before that, I read a book, which I might be presenting. Oh. On this very poodcast.
>> Grace Todd:Oh.
>> Leigh:In who knows how long. so I'm just gonna leave it at that.
>> Grace Todd:All right. All right, then. Keep your secrets. Yeah.
>> Leigh:That's for me to know and you to find out.
>> Grace Todd:Well, I hope so. Otherwise, we're not gonna have much of an episode.
>> Leigh:I hope so. Too.
>> Grace Todd:If you just come and tell yourself about it without me in the room. Be a little.
>> Leigh:I talk to myself all the time.
>> Grace Todd:I mean, you could try it. I could take a week off, could set the equipment up and just leave you to it. Go take a nap.
>> Leigh:You know, that sounds very artistic, very adventurous, doing a.
>> Grace Todd:Two person podcast, but with one person and just leaving various lengths of silence, the audience would provide their own response. M. And you just leave them the space to do it. We'll m leave a space now for the audience to say their part.
>> Leigh:Oh, yes. That's a good point.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, that was really. Wow.
>> Leigh:Mm Mm Well, this is going well. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Speaking of people talking, to themselves and needing to have their egos shored up by strangers, what? Do you know about Patricia highsmith?
>> Leigh:Nothing. I know nothing. All right.
>> Grace Todd:You have probably heard of some of her books.
>> Leigh:We'll see.
>> Grace Todd:She wrote the talented mister ripley.
>> Leigh:Oh, yep, I've heard of that movie.
>> Grace Todd:And also strangers on a train.
>> Leigh:I have.
>> Grace Todd:I've also heard of that movie.
>> Leigh:Yes.
>> Grace Todd:Because it was adapted by alfred hitchcock.
>> Leigh:Ah. Ah, yeah. I have also heard of him, yes. Mm Very. Cultured.
>> Grace Todd:Well done.
>> Leigh:Thank you.
>> Grace Todd:You passed the pop quiz.
>> Leigh:Ah, ah.
>> Grace Todd:Okay. So Patricia Highsmith.
>> Leigh:So she started all that stuff.
>> Grace Todd:She did start all of that stuff. Good job, Leigh.
>> Leigh:All right. I haven't talked to anyone today before this, so except for my dogs, in.
>> Grace Todd:True me fashion, I feel like this keeps happening. I did not realize until after I had already decided to do this for the show that there is a new Netflix adaptation of the talented Mister Ripley that came out like M. Today as we're recording this.
>> Leigh:Oh, wow.
>> Grace Todd:Which is gonna be like, at least a week before the actual episode drops.
>> Leigh:But talk about a little marketing bump. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Cause I was sitting at breakfast this morning, idly, I'll google authors sometimes just kind of to see what's floating around in the zeitgeist. And there were three or four brand new articles from Vanity Fair and the Guardian being like, who was Patricia Highsmith?
>> Leigh:And you're like, what is going on?
>> Grace Todd:And I was like, that's weird.
>> Leigh:So speccioso.
>> Grace Todd:And then I found out it was because Netflix is doing another adaptation of the talented Mister M. Ripley right now.
>> Leigh:I don't know what that is about. And I always get it confused with good will hunting.
>> Grace Todd:It's a very particular, very pretty era of Matt Damon.
>> Leigh:Yeah, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Blonde, blonde, young, m with that smooth face.
>> Leigh:Blonde, young, smooth face. That sounds like an AI tinder.
>> Grace Todd:Profile, blonde, smooth face.
>> Leigh:Blonde, young, smooth face.
>> Grace Todd:Swipe right on. Blonde, young, smooth face.
>> Leigh:Yeah. 2.6 miles away.
>> Grace Todd:Today, we are not gonna delve into the talented Mister Ripley.
>> Leigh:Okay?
>> Grace Todd:I might, at some point do an episode on the novel. I might, at some point do a bonus episode about the novel and the new adaptation. Sort of how they pair up.
>> Leigh:Did they send it to you to preview?
>> Grace Todd:Oh, God, no.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Oh, no.
>> Leigh:You're not on their pr.
>> Grace Todd:Shockingly, no. M. weird. Today we're gonna talk about a short story that came quite a while after the talented Mister Ripley was written. She wrote, this is from a collection that she wrote in the eighties, toward the end of her career.
>> Leigh:Yeah. So when was she alive?
>> Grace Todd:So she was born in 1920, actually. Hang on.
>> Leigh:Let me just. I have this bookmark.
>> Grace Todd:So she was born in 1921.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:In Texas.
>> Leigh:Ooh. Yee haw. Huh? Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Yeehaw, indeed. Did something about that tickle you?
>> Leigh:No, no. It was just so, like, understated and academic. Yee haw, indeed. It's like what a news anchor would.
>> Grace Todd:Say, look, this is who I am. Take it or leave it.
>> Leigh:I take it. I take it with a smile.
>> Grace Todd:so she was born in Texas. Her parents divorced right before she was born. Very, very quick synopsis of her early life. Her mother remarried a man that she, according to her, hated at first sight, although she met him for the first time when she was three and a half. And I think maybe she's exaggerating a little.
>> Leigh:That was such a quick succession of different kinds of information. Hold on a second. Okay, go. Okay, go on.
>> Grace Todd:and then her mother and stepfather moved the family to Manhattan. To New York.
>> Leigh:Wait, Patricia hated him at first sight? Oh, yes. The mom didn't hate him at first sight. Yeah. No.
>> Grace Todd:So Patricia says that she hated her stepfather as soon as she met him.
>> Leigh:But she was only three.
>> Grace Todd:She was three and a half.
>> Leigh:She was three and a half. And then they moved. You said they moved to Manhattan. Manhattan. And she still hated him.
>> Grace Todd:Oh, she hated him for her entirely.
>> Leigh:She always hated. Okay, so that was very consistent for her. Yes.
>> Grace Todd:She also hated a lot of people. Most people. Okay, we'll get to that after we talk about the story.
>> Leigh:Okay? Hash relatable.
>> Grace Todd:This is a woman who is full of rage.
>> Leigh:Okay? Just an angry little Texas woman.
>> Grace Todd:She had short stories published in high school and college, and then strangers on a train was published in 1950.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:She also wrote the Price of Salt, which was the basis of the movie Carol. Oh, yeah. which she originally published under a pseudonym. And was her mother wound up outing her as the author of the price of salt to a. Like, a priest. Her mother, I guess, went to her pastor or somebody and was like, my daughter wrote this raunchy novel, and then.
>> Leigh:The priest told people, I guess, so that's specifically what he's not supposed to do.
>> Grace Todd:Well, I'm not sure. It was in the seal of confession. Her mother was not Catholic.
>> Leigh:Okay. I was about to say. Cause then that's fine, for the mother, only a priest that we should really be mad at.
>> Grace Todd:Only Catholics have that. Well, and probably episcopal. Anyone who does confession.
>> Leigh:But, like, evangelicals talking to a priest on the sidewalk.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, they don't do, They don't do confession. They don't have, like, the seal of the confessional.
>> Leigh:Well, I didn't know that.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah. And then the Ripley books started coming out in the Ripley books. Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of them.
>> Leigh:The talented Mister Ripley, the gassy Mister Ripley, the ponderous Mister Ripley. I don't know why I'm humming Mister Ripley's little brother.
>> Grace Todd:Jake, just ignoring you.
>> Leigh:My brain is not. There we go. Tip top. Today.
>> Grace Todd:Talented Mister Ripley was published in 1955.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:She had a very long, pretty prolific writing career, and this is a short story collection that came out in 1985, and then she ultimately died in 1995.
>> Leigh:Ooh. Okay.
>> Grace Todd:So this is late in her career.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:And she's been living outside of the United States for a long time by the time this comes out, although she does take a trip back to do some research for a novel she's working on about the sort of religious evangelical rite. And I think that's definitely an influence on this story.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:The story is the second in the collection. The collection is called mermaids on the golf course. And this is a short story called where the action is.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:And I have one quick note for you, actually, before we get started.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:This is a story that nominally hinges around a rape.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:It's a little hard to believe until you get into the story. The rape is kind of the least important part of the story in a lot of ways.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:But in this context and especially with this author and this story, I think it's very important when we are going through the story and when we are talking about it afterwards to stay very mindful about delineating between characters and real people.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:So, like, just be mindful as you're going through the story to really think about these as characters who are being moved around by an author for an end.
>> Leigh:Yeah. To serve m a purpose.
>> Grace Todd:Yes. And not as like real people that real things are happening to.
>> Leigh:Yeah, that makes sense.
>> Grace Todd:There's an interesting kind of fairy tale like quality to a lot of Highsmith's short stories. And a lot of the characters move around in a way that is m almost like archetypal fairytale charactery. And they lack a certain amount of depth in some ways and have a lot of depth in other ways, but they don't always behave in ways that make a lot of sense if they were actual flesh and blood humans.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Okay, because of the story, I am m just going to say the word rape a lot.
>> Leigh:Get it?
>> Grace Todd:Because when I'm reading directly from the story, I am, going to use the word assault when we are talking about it. Mostly because I just don't like saying.
>> Leigh:It over and over again. Yeah, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:But this has very little bearing on any of the realities around sexual assault.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:I think it's saying some really interesting things about feminism and women and sexuality. but I think it has vanishingly little to do with actual sexual assault and survivors of assault and what that means, or even meant when the story was written in the eighties.
>> Leigh:Very interesting. I'll be very interested to hear the, story.
>> Grace Todd:With that slightly torturous caveat, were going to dive into where the action is. Okay, here it was some action. Finally, an armed holdup of a town bus, and Craig Rollins was in urgent need of a toilet. Nevertheless, Craig raised his camera once again and snapped just as a scared looking man was hopping down the steps of the halted bus. Then Craig ran, heading for eats and takeaway where he knew there was a men's room by the telephones. Craig was back in something under a minute, but by then the action seemed to be over. He hadn't heard any gunshots. A cop was blowing a whistle. An ambulance had pulled up, but Craig didn't see anybody who was wounded. So Craig is a freelance photographer.
>> Leigh:All right.
>> Grace Todd:Who has turned up with it. Sounds like characteristically poor timing in the aftermath of an armed robbery on a bus. Which seems. I'm still not entirely clear on the logistics of how one performs an armed robbery of a bus.
>> Leigh:Like a public bus.
>> Grace Todd:Yes. with like 30 plus people on it.
>> Leigh:you know, it sounds like maybe a crime of desperation.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, I'm sure. But the moral of the story is that somehow three men. Three armed men with.
>> Leigh:Oh, well, you got three men, you know, that makes it a little easier.
>> Grace Todd:It's true. Yeah, it still seems complicated, but whatever.
>> Leigh:Now we're cooking with gas.
>> Grace Todd:They got on the bus. They somehow stopped the bus. They took a bunch of people's wallets.
>> Leigh:On the bus stop by waving the gun at people. Stop it. I'm trying to.
>> Grace Todd:I'm not even sure. Okay, they did have a,
>> Leigh:One guy had a gun. All right, let's go down. Let me show you how. Let me show you how to do this. It's not that hard.
>> Grace Todd:If I get arrested, it's because Leigh tried to show me hands on how to rob a bus.
>> Leigh:Yeah, it's for the podcast.
>> Grace Todd:So the passengers are off the bus now. Two of the men are being arrested. The passengers are all milling around complaining that their purses and things have been taken. and another freelance photographer turns up. Tom Buckley. Tom, who asks Craig if he got any good, good shots of the action. Craig didn't want to ask if Tom had got a shot of the guy with the gun, because Craig had missed this shot, which might have been possible at exactly the time he had had to dash to a men's room. He moved closer to the police wagon and took a picture of the two young men, who looked about 20 as they were urged into the back of the wagon. Tom Buckley was also snapping. One or maybe even two of Tom's photos would make it in the afternoon, edition of the Evening Star Cross. Craig was thinking. Craig shot up the rest. Krog.
>> Leigh:Sorry, was Krog there also? There's a third character, and his name is Krog. He also has a camera.
>> Grace Todd:Craig shot up the rest of his role, aiming at any place, at a cop, reassuring an elderly woman, at a girl rushing from a narrow passageway into Main street where the bus was, and being greeted by a man and a woman who might have been her parents. He thinks he hasn't gotten anything worthwhile. He just kind of finishes taking pictures just to do it. Goes home to develop his pictures. He lives with his parents. He's converted his bathroom into a dark room.
>> Leigh:Okay, can I ask you a question? Hm? What happened to the third person?
>> Grace Todd:we will find out.
>> Leigh:Oh, oh, oh, sorry. I was being perceptive.
>> Grace Todd:He goes home, he develops his pictures, and it says no action in them, apart from a cluttered street scene of people looking bewildered still. Craig presented them at the office of you know what, I forgot to look up how to pronounce this town name.
>> Leigh:Can I see? Can duck?
>> Grace Todd:We'll go with that.
>> Leigh:Either that or can't. Kandok.
>> Grace Todd:It's in Kanduk, Wyoming, if that helps.
>> Leigh:I don't know what Wyoming people sound like. Canduk.
>> Grace Todd:We have one. So the one listener we have in Wyoming is very, very offended. Now.
>> Leigh:I thought you were gonna say we have, like, one brain cell between us today.
>> Grace Todd:That is also true.
>> Leigh:That's also. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Brain cells in Wyoming.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And he's all right. So he's developed the pictures. He doesn't think they're very good still. Craig presented them at the office of Candook's Evening star about half past noon, imagining that Tom Buckley had got there a few minutes earlier and with better photos.
>> Leigh:Tom.
>> Grace Todd:He's really into Tom. Or specifically, he's constantly thinking about the fact that Tom is objectively the better and more successful photographer. He's also a little older than Craig. Ed Simmons bent his balding head over Craig's ten photographs. The big, messy room held seven people at their desks, and there was the usual clatter of typewriters. Got there a little late, Craig murmured apologetically, not caring if Ed heard him or not. Hey, you got Lizzie Davis with her folks. Hey, Craig, this one is great. We'll use this one just the moment after running out of that alley. Beautiful. Didn't know her name, Craig said, and wondered why Ed was so excited. Ed showed the photo to a man at another desk. Others gathered to look at the picture, which was of a girl of 20 or younger with long dark hair, her white blouse partially pulled out of her skirt top, looking anxious as she rushed forward towards a man and a woman approaching her from Main street. This is the girl who was nearly raped. Or maybe she even was, Ed Simmons said to Craig. Didn't you know that? Craig certainly hadn't heard. Raped by whom? He wondered. Then the snatches of conversation that he heard enlightened him. The third holdup boy, who was still at large, had dragged Lizzie Davis off the bus and into an alley and threatened to stick a knife in her throat or to rape her unless she kept her mouth shut when the police came up the alley. The police hadn't come up the alley. In the picture, Lizzie's father, in a pale business suit and straw hat, was just about to touch his daughter's shoulder, while her mother, on the right in the picture, rushed towards the girl with both arms spread. Now he saw in the upside down photo on Ed's desk that the girl's eyes were squeezed shut with horror or fear and her mouth open as if she were crying or gasping for breath. Was she raped? Craig asked. The reply he got was vague, the implication being that the girl wasn't telling so Craig's photo appeared on page two of the Kiyonduk Kyanduk Kyanduk Evening Star that day and one by Tom Buckley of a local cop with two of the holdup boys on the front page. Both photographs had a two column spread. So he's gotten this picture of this very fraught moment of a girl who was maybe assaulted in an alleyway. Maybe not.
>> Leigh:Unclear who was held hostage, who was held hostage at knife point and possibly assaulted. Yes.
>> Grace Todd:And that is enough for his otherwise kind of, you know, whatever photos. But that one sticks out, and it's pretty clearly not because of the photo itself. But because of the salaciousness of the story around it.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:But either way, Craig's pretty impressed with himself. He goes home to have dinner with his parents. He points out that he's got a photo in the newspaper that evening, which.
>> Leigh:Isn'T that his job?
>> Grace Todd:Well, he's a freelancer.
>> Leigh:Oh, right.
>> Grace Todd:So he's sort of between the lines here. Craig is not exactly like a go getter. Yeah, he's not doing very well for himself. He's a freelance photographer who succeeds in actually getting paid for his photos. Rarely enough that he goes home to be like, look, I got one in. And his parents are like, that's great.
>> Leigh:Good job, Craig.
>> Grace Todd:He brags to his girlfriend, who isn't Tom. Isn't Tom, but her name is Constance O'Leary, and everyone calls her clancy.
>> Leigh:Clancy. It's all coming together.
>> Grace Todd:It's all coming together.
>> Leigh:Clancy. That's cute.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, well, it's also just. It's a pretty masculine nickname.
>> Leigh:Sure is.
>> Grace Todd:If there's one thing Patricia Highsmith really knows how to do, it's writing believable heterosexual relationships.
>> Leigh:Like, I understand these. They're simple. Put a man, a woman. It's. There you go. It's.
>> Grace Todd:Patricia Highsmith writes straight people the way that straight men write lesbians.
>> Leigh:Yeah. Yeah. That makes. I get it.
>> Grace Todd:Except with way less interest in the sex part.
>> Leigh:Yeah. She's like, I don't know, whatever. They're,
>> Grace Todd:Just like,
>> Leigh:A,
>> Grace Todd:Complete and total inability to under. To like. To imagine what could possibly be appealing.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:About being in a heterosexual relationship.
>> Leigh:She's like, they're friends, I guess. I don't. Whatever. Moving on.
>> Grace Todd:As an example, the only thing Clancy says or gets to say on the page in response to Craig bragging about his photo is, you're the greatest.
>> Leigh:Just like, oh, wait, who said that?
>> Grace Todd:Clancy. It's Clancy.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Because that's.
>> Leigh:She's like, gee, willikers.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah. Gee whiz, you're great.
>> Leigh:I sure am fond of you.
>> Grace Todd:But the photo is beginning to gain a life of its own. So someone from the New York Times sees it, and they ask to reprint it in a, series that they're doing.
>> Leigh:Is Canuck a real place?
>> Grace Todd:I didn't actually remember to check.
>> Leigh:Let me check real quick.
>> Grace Todd:All right, look it up.
>> Leigh:Cause if it is, I want to rescind my jokes. I was making fun of it because I thought it wasn't real. It is not.
>> Grace Todd:Oh, good.
>> Leigh:Resume jokes.
>> Grace Todd:So Craig goes in to sell some more photos. They're all terrible. He makes a point of saying that Tom Buckley probably took better ones at the same events.
>> Leigh:Tom, just with his throbbing finger on the shutter button. Yeah, he's just so good.
>> Grace Todd:And Ed, doesn't buy any of the photos he has today. But still, Craig's dazed smile at the news about the New York Times lingered on his face as he left the office. He'd never yet had a photo in the New York Times. What was so great about that picture?
>> Leigh:I don't know. I just.
>> Grace Todd:He's baffled.
>> Leigh:He does not understand photography.
>> Grace Todd:No, not even a little. It says Craig found out some five days later. His photograph was one of three and the first of a three part series of articles in the New York Times called Crime in America. Streets M. His photograph had been cleverly cut to show it to better advantage. Craig noticed the text beneath said, a young woman in a small town in Wyoming rushes towards her parents seconds after being held hostage under threat of rape by one of a three man armed hold up team who robbed bus passengers in mid morning. When Craig showed the article to his parents that evening, he saw real joy and surprise in their faces. Their son with his work in the New York Times. And then they immediately start talking about Lizzie herself. Oh, because this is a small town, right?
>> Leigh:They. Oh, right, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Craig's father points out that Lizzie's a changed girl. And his mother said Edna Schwartz was talking about Lizzie just yesterday. Told me Lizzie's broken off her engagement. You know, she was supposed to get married in late June. Craig. Craig hadn't known. Was she really raped? He asked, as if his parents might know the truth. As indeed they might, because his mother worked behind the counter of odds and ends, a shop that sold dry goods and buttons, and his mother chatted with nearly every woman of the town. And his father certainly saw a lot of people in the hardware store, she's saying. So his mother replied in a whisper at least she's hinting at it. And nobody knows if she broke off her engagement or her boyfriend. Did we find out that her fiance was a boy named Pete Walsh? Paul Walsh.
>> Leigh:I was like, wait a minute, wasn't.
>> Grace Todd:He in fallout boy? Well, it's actually his mother says Pete Walsh. And then his father corrects her and says Paul Walsh. Maybe he wasn't fallout boy.
>> Leigh:I don't think so.
>> Grace Todd:But the Walshes, it's pointed out, are from, are a well to do family in a neighborhood famous for its fine houses.
>> Leigh:Who broke off the engagement?
>> Grace Todd:No one knows.
>> Leigh:Right.
>> Grace Todd:it doesn't. What his parents are talking about is that no one knows if Lizzie broke off the engagement or Paul did.
>> Leigh:But it's broke.
>> Grace Todd:But it's broken off.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And Craig's only editorialization on the situation is he immediately assumes it was the Walsh family, probably because they're rich snobs he thought to break an engagement these days because a girl's virginity might have been lost like prehistoric times.
>> Leigh:When is this story set?
>> Grace Todd:It isn't really clear. It kind of seems like it could have been anytime in the seventies or early eighties, I'm assuming. Roughly contemporarily with when it was published.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:The rest of the series in the New York Times comes out and he reads it with careful attention. A series about car thefts, robberies of apartments, muggings, plus the efforts of the police in big cities to control such crime, of course, but also about the danger of its increasing now that unemployment was spreading among the under 25s.
>> Leigh:Tell me about it.
>> Grace Todd:And there are a few photos in the series that he really admires that are objectively good photographs. And it concludes with. Now these were damned good photographs. Why had they liked his so much? Because Lizzie Davis face was pretty or because she really had been raped? And it's okay, he's just like Greg. It's so like as a character, Craig is such a portrait of a very particular. You're getting an image, right, of the character that Highsmith is, ah, creating here.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:He's very hung up on the question of what really happened, but also not really.
>> Leigh:Well, not because of the event itself, but because of what it means for like, am I a m good photographer? Am I as good as Tom?
>> Grace Todd:Yes.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:This character is primarily interested in what has happened to other people insofar as they reflect on him.
>> Leigh:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Because he is. Because this character has the mental complexity of a twelve year old. He goes to Clancy, his girlfriend and asks her what she thinks of the Lizzie Davis thing, Craig says that he finds the idea that she. That Lizzie Davis was assaulted in the span of what he says was about five minutes unlikely.
>> Leigh:Mm
>> Grace Todd:One of the things that the story kind of dances around is whether or not it really was such a short period of time. It seems like it was, but it's not really clear.
>> Leigh:Well, I'm gonna say something that I was thinking in the beginning, and that is inappropriate for the seriousness of a topic, but it really depends on whether Craig went number one or number two before he went away to go to the bathroom. I almost asked that in the beginning, but I was like, probably doesn't matter.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, it says, but if this were.
>> Leigh:Law and order and we were at the courtroom part. Dun dun, dun, dun, the lawyer would be like, was it number one or number two? How can you be sure it was only five minutes? Have you been drinking enough water lately? What's your fiber intake? I object.
>> Grace Todd:It says in the opening passage that Craig was back in something under a minute, but. We also don't know how reliable this is in. Essentially, it's in Craig's perspective.
>> Leigh:Right. But he said he missed all the action. Right.
>> Grace Todd:I think the action was supposed to have happened very quickly.
>> Leigh:Right, right.
>> Grace Todd:But again, this is written in very close third. It is in Craig's perspective. There's no.
>> Leigh:What assault can happen in less than a minute.
>> Grace Todd:Right.
>> Leigh:That's how Craig talks.
>> Grace Todd:That is how Craig talks.
>> Leigh:Yes. He just sounds like Doug the dog.
>> Grace Todd:And so he tells Clancy that he doesn't believe it, and she responds with.
>> Leigh:She'S like, okay, heterosexual. Heterosexual partner.
>> Grace Todd:Kinda.
>> Leigh:Yeah, you got it.
>> Grace Todd:It says. She says, She also tells him that Lizzie was interviewed by a journalist from Chicago. But anyway, Lizzy doesn't go out much anymore, or so I've heard. Stays at home. She's like a psycho. What? Said Craig. You mean she's gone nuts at home? And home is italicized. And it made me giggle every time at. Where's she supposed to go nuts? Craig or Patricia or whoever?
>> Leigh:Craig was clearly never in a. In an 18 month nationwide lockdown at, home. At home. But home is where your parents take care of you.
>> Grace Todd:At the same time, Craig was thinking that another photo or two of Lizzie Davis might be a good idea. Saleable. Oh, no, I don't mean nuts, Clancy said, her freckled face sobering with thought for a moment. Just that she's not interested in any kind of social life anymore. She's become some sort of a recluse.
>> Leigh:Is that how it's written.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, it's spelled out. R e c k l o o s e. Rec. Loose.
>> Leigh:Very clever, Clancy.
>> Grace Todd:That was a bit of a puzzle to Craig Rollins. But then he didn't understand girls completely and didn't really want to.
>> Leigh:Mm Hm. Mm Mm Hm. Mm hm.
>> Grace Todd:And he reiterates that he's not sure that the assault actually happened. And concludes with, maybe she was putting on an act, breaking her engagement with the Walsh fellow because she didn't really want to marry him. And this is another one of those things where I want to be like, these are characters. Yeah, these are characters written by a woman who found heterosexual relations horrifying.
>> Leigh:Well, and as you said, I guess you said that it's narrated in close third. Like we're just getting an. These are just. We are just an unfiltered view of Craig, the character's dumb little thoughts. Yep. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And then Craig finds out that he's won the Pulitzer Prize for newspaper photography.
>> Leigh:Congratulations, Craig.
>> Grace Todd:Well, and the best part is, I'm.
>> Leigh:Sure you understand why he gets a.
>> Grace Todd:Letter and he doesn't believe it. And it says, craig was afraid to mention the Pulitzer letter to his parents. It might be a joke.
>> Leigh:It's probably Tom pranking me.
>> Grace Todd:And there's a little bit of logistics here. He gets a phone call and then they send him plane tickets. And then he realizes it's actually real.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And he very adorably walks into the kitchen and says, well, ma, I won the Pulitzer for my photo of Lissy Davis.
>> Leigh:Oh my God. It's, feeling camp.
>> Grace Todd:Just wait.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:So he goes, he goes to the Pulitzer ceremony and all of a sudden he's becoming real deal famous, right? He's starting to get phone calls, he's starting to get letters.
>> Leigh:He is failing the up. uh-huh Yeah. It says.
>> Grace Todd:Teenagers, start writing to him, asking if he gives photography lessons. And it says, this made Craig smile because he had never had any lessons himself, apart from a course in high school, a course he had dropped after a month because the work had become too complicated.
>> Leigh:Mm
>> Grace Todd:And then he starts getting invitations to like, go on the lecture circuit.
>> Leigh:Yes, he should do that. I want him to do that which.
>> Grace Todd:He intends to refuse, quote, on the grounds that he had never made a speech in his life and that the idea terrified him. But after a good dinner at home and mentioning these invitations to his parents and his parents saying in their old fashioned way, sure you can, Craig, if you just put your mind to it. Be friendly. People just want to see you and meet you now. And he accepts the offers, and he starts lecturing on photojournalism.
>> Leigh:This feels like Fargo.
>> Grace Todd:And he lecturing on waiting for a good, photogenic story, hoping even for a fire, though maybe it wasn't very nice to hope for a fire that might hurt people. And then this had happened. This a, minor tragedy by world standards, but upsetting for some 30 or 40 ordinary citizens. Disastrous for the young girl called Lizzie Davis, who had intended to m marry in a few days, but whose life had been shattered, maybe ruined, by crime in the streets. Craig hammered the crime angle because the articles on crime in the streets had launched his photograph.
>> Leigh:Mm. Mm
>> Grace Todd:It says after four speeches, Craig had got the hang of it.
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah. Uh-huh nailed it.
>> Grace Todd:And the fees are mounting. He's getting ever increasing job offers. Yeah, Craig, he's negotiating hard.
>> Leigh:Has he taken another picture at this point?
>> Grace Todd:No.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Cool. With the extra money from his speeches, Craig Rollins was a changed young man. Yes, he was able to buy more clothes and discovered that he had a taste for quality in clothes and also in food. He acquired a new japanese camera that could do more things than his old, old ones, which were secondhand anyway. Yes, he still had Clancy as his main girlfriend, but he had met a girl called sue in Houston who seemed to like him a lot and who had the money to fly to meet him. Sometimes in a town where he was making a speech, a pretty girl beside him enhanced his image. Craig had noticed.
>> Leigh:Uh-huh Mm Yep. Yes.
>> Grace Todd:Which is a good point to, like, pause for a second and point out how sexless this story is, especially for a. A heterosexual man as the narrator.
>> Leigh:Yes, he's very heterosexual.
>> Grace Todd:He's the most. Yeah, the most man.
>> Leigh:He is a grace just gave a thumbs up.
>> Grace Todd:He's straight. And he's also started going to a better barber. His hair was not so short, and the barber fluffed it out in a style that Craig might have called sissy a few months ago. Although no one could possibly have called Craig or his face sissy.
>> Leigh:Mm Mm Mm
>> Grace Todd:He had the head and neck of a line hitter, a tackle, which he had been on the high school football team. And in his first year at Greaves College, Craig's grades would have gotten him kicked out of almost any would, have got him kicked out of almost any college he knew. But Greaves had been willing to keep him on because of his football prowess. The coach had thought he might make all american but Craig had quit college after a month in sophomore year out of sheer boredom with the scholastic part of it.
>> Leigh:Well, can't fault him for that.
>> Grace Todd:But now he's feeling great about himself.
>> Leigh:He's doing great.
>> Grace Todd:he writes back to one of the newspapers that offers him a job and says that he's considering another offer. But if they add another $50,000 to the salary, he might take it.
>> Leigh:Yeah, Craig, ride it while it's. Well, the train's chew chewing.
>> Grace Todd:And after all of this success, Clancy asks if he's been to see Lizzie at all.
>> Leigh:Shut up, Clancy.
>> Grace Todd:And he says no. Why should I? I just thought it might be nice. She did bring you a lot of luck. And it seems she's so sad. So Craig calls up Lizzie and asks if he can go and visit her, and she agrees. Craig picks up a bouquet of flowers and brings his camera with him. Of course she lets him in. She puts the flowers in a vase and then they sit down. Craig sat down in the rather swank living room. The Davises had a lot more money than his family. Lizzie came back and set the vase in the center of the coffee table between them. Then she proceeded to tell him about her broken engagement five months ago now and how quiet her life had been since. In a way, I've lost my self confidence, my self respect. No use trying to gain it back, Lizzie said. That was shattering that day. How had they got here so quickly? Craig wondered. Liz.
>> Leigh:Whoa, whoa, whoa. Trying to bring you some flowers, maybe snap a picture?
>> Grace Todd:Lizzie was talking to him as if he were interviewing her, though he hadn't asked her a single question. And I do think that's interesting. I mean, in part, yes. Craig is obviously like, I don't want to talk about this. Yeah, but I think it's also meant to emphasize how much Lizzie, too, has kind of fallen into a script about that day. Yeah, because it's also become a centralized feature in her life.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And this is what she's used to, is people showing up and sitting down and saying, okay, now tell me about the photo, you know?
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:But she goes on to say, just this afternoon, you won't believe it, I was being photographed in Cheyenne for a perfume ad. I've become a photographer's model. Maybe because I want to get the phobia of photographs out of my soul. Maybe I'm succeeding. I don't know. Craig was wordless for a moment. You mean my picture embarrassed you so much? Im sorry, not the picture so much. What happened? Lizzie replied, lifting her round dark eyes to his. Well it wasnt your fault and the picture brought you huge success. I know it ruined my engagement, but well, in a way im lucky too, because there's a market for a sad dog face like mine. I can see that. The other day I even posed for an ad for men's clothing. You won't believe it, but I was supposed to be the girl with the knowing eyes for clothing, that is, whose face would brighten up if the fellow I liked just wore good looking clothes. See? Very complicated, but it really came off. Craig saw Lizzy's face brighten briefly when she described the way the girl's face would brighten if her boyfriend only wore good clothes. Then an instant later, Lizzie's glum expression was back as if it were a garment she wore for the public. And he asks about her fiance and whether she thinks they'll get back together again. And she says, no, no indeed. I felt as if I'd never want to live with a man as long as I live. Still do feel that way. And Craig points out to himself that Lizzie isn't even 19 yet. And again circles around this idea that she's lying and that maybe specifically that she's lying, in order to have an excuse to break things off. With this man. And then he asks if he can take more pictures of her.
>> Leigh:Yes, yes Craig, you read that room.
>> Grace Todd:But she agrees. And he takes a few photos of her and he starts thinking about some journalists he knows and that he can pitch a piece. So he goes home and he calls up a journalist that he knows and the piece that he's pitching is that he would be the puzzled, guilt ridden small town photographer who had contributed to, even caused the upset of a young woman's life. And the journalist asks if the assault really happened. And Craig almost says, never mind, ugh.
>> Leigh:Thats not what the piece is about.
>> Grace Todd:But instead he replied, she certainly implied she was. Girls never want to say it flat out, you know, but you get my angle that im the one upset now because I, Craig squeezed his eyes shut, thinking hard because I captured in a split second that expression of a girl whos just been assaulted, you know. And then he calls up Tom Buckley to come take photos of him.
>> Leigh:Yes, photograph me, Tom.
>> Grace Todd:Just so Tom, who its pointed out, is still friendly with Craig and had never shown the least jealousy of Craigs success.
>> Leigh:Aw.
>> Grace Todd:Tom Buckley came over the next morning to photograph Craig in his modest darkroom at home and at his work table, brooding over a print of the now famous crime in America's streets. Photo of Lizzie Davis. In this shot, Craig held the photograph at an angle at which it was recognizable. And in his other hand, he, And in his other hand, he held his head in the manner of a man with a terrible headache or tortured by guilt.
>> Leigh:Is the Pulitzer in the frame?
>> Grace Todd:I hope so. Tom chuckled a little as he snapped this one. Good angle. Yeah. You're feeling sorry for the girl? Shes doing fine. I heard with her modeling work. Craig straightened up. But I do feel sorry for her. Sorry about her shame and all that stuff. She sure called her marriage off.
>> Leigh:All her, all her, you know, shame and s. And Tom.
>> Grace Todd:Says she wasnt mad about that guy and he wasnt about her. One of these things the parents were keen on. You know, everybody in town knows that. You havent been paying much attention to town gossip, Craig Oldboy. Too busy with your big town newspapers lately?
>> Leigh:It's gonna turn into a sex scene. Sorry.
>> Grace Todd:And it says, like, tom is just like, kinda like giving him a little bit of hard time, but in a very good natured way. And it says, you forgot about all of us, Craig.
>> Leigh:Sorry. It's not turning into a sex scene.
>> Grace Todd:Unfortunately, no. In a curious way, Craig realized that he had to hold on to his conviction that Lizzie Davis life had been altered, ruined, or he couldn't make a success of the article. Plus photos that he had in mind. And Craig asks Tom again, like he's been asking the whole story if he thinks it really happened. And Tom says, phony. Sure. Little bit. Not worth much thought, is it? All the public wants is a sensational photo. Someone killing themselves, jumping off a building, somebody else getting shot. The hell with. Who's to blame for it? Just give the public the action. The sex angle in your Lizzie picture gave it its kick, you know, who cares if she's telling the truth or not?
>> Leigh:I mean, tom gets the game.
>> Grace Todd:Tom understands.
>> Leigh:Tom understands the publicity game.
>> Grace Todd:And after Tom leaves, craig continues to meditate on it. And it says, craig was sure tom was right. Tom was a bright fellow. So handsome and so pretty and so talented.
>> Leigh:His hands are so soft.
>> Grace Todd:He's a very.
>> Leigh:He's just, a little rough.
>> Grace Todd:The public wanted pictures of buildings bombed high in the air, a wrecked car with a body in it, or bodies lying on pavements. Action. Even the story wasn't terribly important if the picture was eye catching. Now, Craig struggled like a drowning person to hang on to the lizzie story. That she had been raped and had broken her engagement because of the rape, Craig knew he would have to talk to Richard Prescott as if he believed what he was saying.
>> Leigh:Richard Prescott is the journalist? uh-huh Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And so he does. And it says, he prepared himself as if he were an actor. He emoted, he struck his forehead a couple of times, grimaced, and a genuine tear came to support him. Though Prescott had a tape recorder and not a camera.
>> Leigh:Unfortunately, my talents are wasted on this.
>> Grace Todd:And he goes, he goes on this rant, and it's, you know, he's going on about the awful moment when he realized what he'd captured. And m this girl and her parents in the most dramatic moment of their lives. And he goes on to say, it really didn't seem fair. It made me rethink my whole life. I thought about fate, money, fame. I even thought about God.
>> Leigh:Wow.
>> Grace Todd:And the reporter, much like Tom Prescott, clearly does not like he's all right. Yeah, he's smoking a cigarette. He's not even really listening. He finally cuts him off and is like, you've talked through two tapes already. I think you've probably said enough stuff.
>> Leigh:Oh, my God.
>> Grace Todd:At the end, he gives a laugh. The reporter laughs and says that bit about religion at the end. You thinking of writing a book maybe might sell?
>> Leigh:Oh, no. Why did you say that, Richard?
>> Grace Todd:Keep it to yourself. And Craig's feelings have been hurt by the fact that the reporter obviously is not buying anything. Craig is selling emotionally. But the article that comes out is perfect.
>> Leigh:Yeah. Yeah. Toms. Ah.
>> Grace Todd:Done a wonderful job. In his photos, Craig looked serious in one, agonized in the other. An excellent, if only one, picture of Lizzie Davis showed her seated in an armchair in her household, holding what the caption stated was a print of the photograph that had changed her life. Lizzie looked hopeful, modest and pretty as she stared the camera right in its eye.
>> Leigh:I'm just imagining Craig doing, like, a hamlet pose with the skull, but instead of the skull, it's the photograph. uh-huh
>> Grace Todd:That's, that is exactly what you should be imagining.
>> Leigh:Just like stage lighting.
>> Grace Todd:And of course, that article means that he gets even more invitations to go on the lecture circuit.
>> Leigh:Mm Cause now he's a tortured, sad boy.
>> Grace Todd:And that's what he starts working into, the speeches.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And he finally turns down the very expensive staff photography job that they've been trying to give him this whole time.
>> Leigh:Smart. Very smart.
>> Grace Todd:Because Craig had a higher aspirations. He was going to write a book about it all. When he thought of fate's part in it, God's part, his brain seemed to expand and take wings of fancy. He might call his book fate took the picture. Or maybe the lens and the soul. The word conscience in the title might be a bit heavy. Craig gave a few more talks and managed easily to bring his religious thoughts and pangs of conscience into his text. Life is not fair sometimes, and it troubles me, he would say to an odd, or at least respectfully listening audience, here I am, lauded by so many. Recipient of honors. Whereas the poor girl victim, Lizzie, languishes, Craig's book two, the story of a photographer and a girl, appeared four months later. After a rushed printing. The book was ghosted by a bright 22 year old journalist from Houston named Phil Spark, who was not given credit on the title page.
>> Leigh:No, of course not.
>> Grace Todd:Two battles sold about 20,000 copies in its first six months, thanks to aggressive publicity by its New York publisher and to a good photo of Lizzie Davis on the back of the jacket. This meant that the sales more than covered Craig's advance, so Craig was going to have more money in his pocket due to royalties. He and Clancy got married and moved into a house with a mortgage.
>> Leigh:That is the heterosexual dream. uh-huh.
>> Grace Todd:He sends a few copies to Lizzie Davis, who sends him back a formal and rather cold note of thanks. But they.
>> Leigh:I just. I hoped you were gonna say cease and desist.
>> Grace Todd:Nope. But she showed no sign of wanting to see Craig again. And he didn't particularly want to see her again, either. And here's the conclusion.
>> Leigh:I'm ready.
>> Grace Todd:Craig appeared on a few religious programs on tv, which did his book a world of good. And he dutifully answered almost all his fan mail, though some of it was pretty stupid. From teenagers asking how they could start out being a newspaper photographer.
>> Leigh:Craig doesn't know. Craig doesn't know.
>> Grace Todd:Craig has no clue.
>> Leigh:No.
>> Grace Todd:Still, contact with the public gave Craig the feeling that he was making new friends everywhere, that America was not merely a big playground, but a friendly and receptive one, which conflicted a bit with his playing the reflective and publicity shy cameraman. Craig eased himself over this little bump in the road by convincing himself that he had discovered another exploring God and his own conscience. This seemed, to Craig, an endless path to greater things. Craig decided to tour America with Clancy in his new compact station wagon and to photograph poor families in Detroit and Boston. maybe some in Texas, too. And fires, of course. And fires, of course, in case he encountered any rape and mugging victims, street urchins of wherever, sad faced animals in zoos he would make himself famous as the photographer compelled to photograph the seemier side of life. he envisaged a book with a few lines under each photograph which would reflect his personal conflict in regard to God and justice. Craig Rollins was convinced of his own conviction and that was what counted. Plus the belief, of course, that such a book would sell. Hadn't he proved by two battles that such a book would sell.
>> Leigh:Yep.
>> Grace Todd:The end.
>> Leigh:I mean, this, this just sounds like the real story that has basically happened over and over again.
>> Grace Todd:Well, and that's so one of the things that jumped out at me about this is that it reminded me so much of, like it feels prescient, like it feels like it reflects more on now even than it did when it was written.
>> Leigh:I would say that it's a story, I guess as long as we've had the media, the fourth estate, however you want to refer to it, it seems like it's a story that's been repeated and now it's just in hyperdrive because of social media and everybody's ability to capture stories and images.
>> Grace Todd:Yes, the story, when it was written, It's a dark, ironic humor. You know, it's funny in a very, very dark way. I think it would have read as a lot more overblown.
>> Leigh:No, it's not.
>> Grace Todd:It's so not like when it was written, I think it would have come across as a lot more intense in terms of like, wow, this man's like really pulling off a grift as like it.
>> Leigh:Now we have Doctor Phil.
>> Grace Todd:It feels more banal now, I think, than it did when it came out, if that makes sense.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Like it was. The little details and things, I think felt more heightened when it was published.
>> Leigh:When did daytime talk shows become a thing?
>> Grace Todd:I would think the eighties, right? I m think it's actually later than that.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Cause wasn't one of the first ones like, was it Ricky Lake?
>> Leigh:She had one. I mean, I wanna say it was like late eighties, early nineties. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:One of the things that's extra interesting about this story in particular in terms of Patricia Highsmith, is that she was willfully and wildly out of touch with contemporary, like with american culture when she was writing the story.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:She did go on that trip back to the states and she spent two weeks at a friend's house just watching daytime evangelical tv. Uh-huh as research for a novel, which clearly also inspired this story. So she did. She had like an immersive two weeks. But she also was the kind of writer who moved out of the United States in, like, the sixties and just kind of stayed gone. Didn't have a television.
>> Leigh:Kind of sounds like she knew all she needed to know, though. You know, she got the main points pretty down.
>> Grace Todd:What made Highsmith famous was writing crime fiction, and especially, you know, the talented Mister Ripley.
>> Leigh:Is that crime?
>> Grace Todd:Yep, it's crime fiction.
>> Leigh:He's not a janitor who can do math.
>> Grace Todd:It's shocked. He's a con artist, right? He's a grifter. basically an elaborate one. But the talented Mister Ripley and a lot of her novels are very heavily european. Ripley is a very cultured con artist.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Craig, I think, is her corn fed. Yeah. Like, a thoroughly small town american con artist. Because m what is more american?
>> Leigh:I did not mean that derogatorily, by the way. I love corn fed peoples cornflakes. I was gonna be like, who are.
>> Grace Todd:You worried about offending?
>> Leigh:I've said, I've mentioned that to people from the. I've met people from the midwest before, and I, like, say that as, like, a cute thing. Like, ooh, you corn fed. And I've had people, not enjoy that comment.
>> Grace Todd:Oh, fair enough.
>> Leigh:And then I've had other people be like, yeah, I'm corn fed. So, you know, I say it with love. That's fair.
>> Grace Todd:I'm born. What is more american than convincing yourself of the truth of your grift?
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And also, what is more american than going on the religious angle?
>> Leigh:No. Like, this. Like, I have almost very little to say about it because this is just sounds like an actual thing that happened about 30 times. So sorry, I don't have any commentary. So the podcast's over. Episode's over.
>> Grace Todd:It's. I don't know. I think it's. There are a few things about it that I find really interesting, and I do think that one of those things. And this is a little awkward and uncomfortable to talk about because. Of all of the things that happen outside of the world of this story, but the question of the assault itself. And whether in the world of the story. As characters. As characters created by Patricia Highsmith, who described sex with men as being, like, having steel wool rubbed in your face.
>> Leigh:Ooh.
>> Grace Todd:Like, so in the world of the story. Again, I cannot be m more emphatic about this.
>> Leigh:Got it.
>> Grace Todd:Is Lizzie using this as an excuse to not have to deal with men? Because there are parts of the story where it kind of seems that way.
>> Leigh:I guess I personally. Okay. And I might have a hard time like, separating story from, I don't know, personal or, reality. To me, it doesn't really matter.
>> Grace Todd:Sure.
>> Leigh:Because, I mean, we all know factually that you were held hostile. Like, you were abducted at knife point and taken away in like, a life threatening situation. And that's traumatic.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah.
>> Leigh:And especially if you're like, what is she, like 17 or something?
>> Grace Todd:Like 18, maybe 18.
>> Leigh:1718. Yeah. If that changes your life in some way or changes your perspective or you. I don't. That just doesn't really matter to me. Like, yeah, and then you're like, you know what? I didn't want to marry that guy anyway, so.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, no, and that's totally fair. But, like, I think that's what highsmith was attempting to like. I think that's what highsmith thinks. In part because highsmith also, hated women.
>> Leigh:Oh, she hates everyone.
>> Grace Todd:But what. So who does she like? Let's talk for a little bit about cats. Patricia highsmith. She did like cats.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:She hated everyone.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:She was a bigot. She was an anti semite. She was racist.
>> Leigh:Wow.
>> Grace Todd:She also hated Nixon and fascists.
>> Leigh:And she really hated everyone.
>> Grace Todd:Literally everyone.
>> Leigh:Did she like anyone?
>> Grace Todd:No. She very carefully and strategically drove away all of her lovers and alienated all of her friends. She was impossible to, like, impossible to spend time with. That is what a, That's what a misanthrope is.
>> Leigh:Like.
>> Grace Todd:She was a.
>> Leigh:It's not romanticized.
>> Grace Todd:It's not cute. Yeah.
>> Leigh:Like, a younger version of me is like, wow, I wanna figure her out. Oh, my gosh. I bet I could get her to like me and, like, meet, you know, me now after therapy is like, well, that sounds miserable. Good luck with that. Bye.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, no, she sucked.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:She judged everyone. She was an isolationist. She was a big bootstraps galaxy. One of the things that I was reminded of reading her biography is you've watched the show Gentleman Jack, right?
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:So you know how they portray Anne Lister as being a woman who has no problem with the patriarchy? She's just mad that she's not part of it.
>> Leigh:Yeah. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:That's Patrick. Like, Patricia Highsmith is a misogynist.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And she was funny because she would, you know, she wasn't. No one is unidimensional. And one of the best quotes I could find of her attitudes towards women and feminism come from when a young journalist visited her who was like, an open and ardent feminist. And this was in the, I think, very end of the seventies or very early eighties. And it says and I'm using the biography, the talented Miss Highsmith by Joan Shankar, which is very good.
>> Leigh:And it says, thanks, Joan.
>> Grace Todd:Pat, straining for a topic that might appeal to a feminist guest, searched her memory to produce some slight evidence of the social injustices suffered by women. She herself had suffered none, she said firmly, and expressed a special disgust for feminists. So, we get this quote because she's trying, in a weird way, to be hospitable.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:It's hard for me to see women as a whole standing on their own feet. I still see them as sort of in relationship to a man, which is very curious because my mother was very, as women go, even now, she was definitely rather brave. She had a career since the age of 20. And when she wanted to divorce my father, she did. And, my father offered money and so on, you know, for the doctor. When I was born, at least my mother said, no, thanks. So I had in my childhood the image of a rather strong, independent woman. And yet, I don't see them that way. I see them as a bunch of pushovers. For the most part. I see them as whining, to tell you the truth, especially this feminist thing. Whining. Always complaining about something instead of doing something. Men can leave the house. Ripley leaves his house. He's got a wife there, plus a servant. I don't see women leaving the house. Maybe it's just a quirk of mine or something wrong in me.
>> Leigh:This is. She reminds me of Piers Morgan. She, just sounds like a Fox News anchor or something who just hates everyone.
>> Grace Todd:Well, but Fox News anchors love other rich white people, and she hates them too. Like, she hates. And I'm not saying this to excuse her viewpoints, but she just hates everyone.
>> Leigh:Most of all herself.
>> Grace Todd:Well, yeah.
>> Leigh:So, yeah, that's where that comes from.
>> Grace Todd:Well, but also, like, very specifically, in a thoroughly documented fashion. So she grew up in a decently religious household. And she, from a very early age, swung back and forth between defiance and guilt over her own sexuality. And at one point signed herself up for therapy.
>> Leigh:Like conversion therapy.
>> Grace Todd:Well, they didn't call it conversion therapy, but she signed herself up for therapy. And part of it was like, fix my gayness. And it didn't last because she started projecting a bunch of weird emotional to her therapist.
>> Leigh:I am surprised.
>> Grace Todd:And also, I guess, I don't know, I want to use the word thankfully, because I think conversion therapy is inherently evil. But as she did, anytime anyone told her to change anything about herself, the minute it got down to, like, and now we're going to try and fix you. She, could not resist bridling and basically being like, you. I'm great.
>> Leigh:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And also, she developed a crush on her therapist pretty quickly, and she was just.
>> Leigh:It got messy.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah. And she basically could not stop herself from having sex with every woman she could flirt with. So it didn't take well, but she did have that really deep seated self loathing. Like, that is why she drove everyone away. That is what. Like, she was. She was deeply, deeply insecure, and she hated everyone and herself most of all, I think.
>> Leigh:Well, you have to keep people at an arm's length so that you don't have to be vulnerable with them, so that because you don't think you're valuable, you're worthy of that love.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah.
>> Leigh:But little did she know that there would be an entire generation of Internet men, God. Doing this exact same thing on Reddit a mere 20 years later.
>> Grace Todd:But, like, Patricia Highsmith is one of those figures, one of those writers that you either see floated as this, like, rah rah, forgotten Femin, you know, like, she was a lesbian and she wasn't shy about it. And she wrote comics for Marvel in the fifties, and she wrote the price of salt, which was, like, one of the first books ever where lesbians got to have a happy ending. And, like, what a pioneer. And then you get the other side, which is like, look at Patricia Highsmith. This piece of.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And I think both are true and both are irrelevant.
>> Leigh:M why are both irrelevant?
>> Grace Todd:Cause she's dead now.
>> Leigh:Ah. yes. Good point. an astute observation on your end, Grace. M. I don't think of that because.
>> Grace Todd:She'S dead now and her books are very, very good and in very wide circulation and because, very interestingly, and I always find it fascinating when this happens, with a few exceptions, her bigotry did not make its way into her work.
>> Leigh:That is interesting.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah.
>> Leigh:That is unexpected.
>> Grace Todd:I think that it is not infrequent that we look back at people who we think sort of should agree with us in all the right ways because they themselves were marginalized or sort of fighting an uphill battle or were underdogs in one way, and then we find out that they were bigoted in another way. It's a through line. Right? You have famous gay authors who you know from any time prior to now who were anti semitic, or you have famous black authors who turn out to be antisemitic. It's a lot of antisemitism it's just like the mold and the blue cheese of western life. But I think it also happens now you find people, I mean, for something as surface level as RuPaul be fracking on their land, the very insecurities that drive someone to make great art or to make interesting art, or to pave the way in an art form of any kind, that drive comes from the self same place that will let you lapse into bigotry if you are not. Or selfishness, as with like, environmental, that kind of thing, if you are not very vigilant about it. And I don't think that's an excuse, but I think maybe we should stop being so surprised when it happens.
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
>> Grace Todd:And we shouldn't not talk about it. Like, I, you know, I make a point of, anytime we cover an author, anytime we cover a book, I'm like, well, there's the racist bit. We found it like, yeah, I don't think we should gloss over it, but I think we should stop trying to turn especially authors and artists into these kind of like, uni dimensional, like, lesbian powerhouse icon Patricia Highsmith.
>> Leigh:Yeah. Like, letting people. Well, I think that there's a very slow, very slow trend towards letting people be messy and complicated and like, trying to put people on less of a pedestal. And that might just be within my bubble, but I think there's more conversations about it, culturally, at least.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, I mean, we're definitely improving.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:No gods, no heroes, baby.
>> Leigh:No gods, no heroes.
>> Grace Todd:And so, I mean, some of her, some of her bull is just very funny. She spent a good amount of time trying to convince herself to marry an english novelist. The one that she had a man. Yes.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Because she really wanted the respect, like eyaval. I don't. I wonder if she would have been happier if she would have been in.
>> Leigh:An angry, loveless marriage show marriage. I mean, marriage, it would give her something to target her anger at, honestly. Maybe save the rest of us.
>> Grace Todd:But it's funny with authors like this, I'm like, would you have been happier if you had been born in 1980 instead of dying in 1990? Or were you just always going to be this furious?
>> Leigh:I don't know.
>> Grace Todd:But, you know, back to the story and the reason that I brought up the idea of whether Lizzie is essentially using this thing that everyone knows about as, a convenient means to shun men for life. Right? Cause that's what Lizzie says. She says, I don't ever want to live with a man. And I don't think I ever will.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:I think from the perspective of a character and a scenario created by highsmithing, Lizzie is both a up dream. And the manifestation of one of her greatest fears, which is not assault. One of her deepest fears was not being sort of. Was being perceived and of letting anyone get too close. Like, she hated feeling vulnerable. She hated feeling like anyone understood her too well. And that was why she would gotta.
>> Leigh:Put those walls up, push people.
>> Grace Todd:Back out of her life with insane bad behavior. Apparently her dinner parties were known for devolving into just terrifying shows.
>> Leigh:Why would people keep going?
>> Grace Todd:Because she was also apparently fascinating in the way that some people are. She was apparently riveting.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:But also horrible getting tired. Just honestly, she's exhausting to read about.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:She was obsessed with snails.
>> Leigh:Ooh, quirky.
>> Grace Todd:She kept them as pets.
>> Leigh:I mean, I like snails. Yeah. But she doesn't mean that. Doesn't mean you'd let me like scream at you for 2 hours over dinner.
>> Grace Todd:She really liked keeping snails. She likes to tell people that she kept snails as pets because they copulated for 14 hours at a time sometimes. Anyway.
>> Leigh:Wow.
>> Grace Todd:Lizzie going back to the story.
>> Leigh:Yeah, get off. That quirked up, shorty.
>> Grace Todd:From Lizzie's perspective, everyone in the town is gossiping about her. And obviously she's had this very intrusive photograph taken of her. That now means that she's being gossiped about nationally, which is horrific. From highsmith's perspective. And I think that the photograph is the real violation in this story.
>> Leigh:Oh, absolutely. Because. Well, and also just the way high Smith describes it, you get tons of details of the photograph and the photographic processes up. There's zero details. There's zero discussion of the assault. Rather than just those two words like, did it happen? Did the rape happen? You know, whereas, like, the photograph is discussed and described and, you know, picked over. And I think that's. You're very right there.
>> Grace Todd:Because Highsmith is blind is, I think, blinded to the inappropriateness of the metaphor that she's using. I think that she is very intentionally positioning this assault as essentially a metaphor for any kind of sexual inappropriateness. That is attached to a girl's name and then made very public. If you are publicly damaged goods or if you are publicly a lesbian and the whole world knows it, then they're gonna stop harassing you about being with a man.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And the little bit of agency that you can take in that scenario, again, from Highsmith's perspective of Lizzie as a character, m is to grab that you've already been violated, right? Your privacy is gone. Everyone is talking about you. But the one thing you can do is grab that and say, you know what? Men are just off the table for me.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And that, from highsmith's perspective, is a minor triumph. Does that make sense?
>> Leigh:It does. And, well, what I was initially thinking, I was thinking about, the angle of Lizzie becoming a model, where she's taking the, What's the word I'm looking for? Hold on a second.
>> Grace Todd:She hated Flannery O'Connor.
>> Leigh:Work, slay.
>> Grace Todd:She hated Flannery O'Connor because they were at the same writer's retreat and she went off and got drunk with a bunch of the other people at the writers retreat. And they all got back. Flannery O'Connor allegedly was kneeling on a porch in the thunderstorm. And they were like, what are you doing? And she was like, jesus face is in this board. And they were like, ooh.
>> Leigh:I saw a comment. I saw a meme. That was something. Someone in a similar situation. And the comment underneath, it was like, so close. It's actually schizophrenia. heart.
>> Grace Todd:she said, ever since then, I've never liked that woman.
>> Leigh:You know, I kind of get it.
>> Grace Todd:She's very funny. She's a horrible person.
>> Leigh:She'd be funny. Yeah, she's very funny. Yeah. Okay, so Lizzie took the wrong with the modeling. Lizzie, like, took the wrong that was done to her and turned it, which I think is, you know, it's like a very common trauma response that a lot of people have. And that can be healthy where you take it and explore it in a safe outlet where you can that in which you're in control of it. And that's another. And that's similar to, I mean, highsmith's approach. And I guess Lizzie's approach, like, highsmith's approach is, as you were saying, like, if everybody's already talking about you or like, the worst possible thing has happened, then what do you do? You can control the narrative. And how did high Smith choose to control the narrative? or seek control in a situation in which she felt out of control? It was to be an absolute monster.
>> Grace Todd:Just to be a dick.
>> Leigh:But then. But you're in control in a way then.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah. Well, she was also a raging alcoholic.
>> Leigh:Well, yeah. Yeah, that tracks as well.
>> Grace Todd:I just, I do think that, like, for a, for an incredibly guilt ridden queer woman. Who is just bathing in self loathing, I think, like, this is part horror story and part fantasy.
>> Leigh:Interesting. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Just the parts of the story. About Lizzie. And I also think that in true Highsmith fashion, Lizzie is less important than the character study of Craig, right?
>> Leigh:Mm.
>> Grace Todd:The darkly humorous sketch of Craig the con artist is the important part here. But I do think it's interesting what she's doing with Lizzie, with Lizzie in the background. But, man, she wrote some riveting fiction.
>> Leigh:Yeah. Good for her.
>> Grace Todd:She had a very clear eyed perspective on the world, or at least a very clear eyed perspective on the darker parts of the world that she chose to write about.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And people, people love the talented Mister Ripley. People love that story. People love strangers on a train.
>> Leigh:He sure solved those math problems.
>> Grace Todd:And she, you know, the rest of her short fiction is fascinating. Like, she has a whole. She has a short story collection called the Animal Lovers book of beastly murder. and it's a series of stories.
>> Leigh:I'm a vegetarian. I don't know if I want to hear this.
>> Grace Todd:Well, it's actually, each one is about an animal murdering its owner.
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah, go on.
>> Grace Todd:And they're all written from the animal's perspective. They're fascinating. They're very, very short. They're these funny little parables. And so one of them is a cat whose owner is dating a man who keeps with the cat. When the owner isn't in the room and the cat finally pushes him down a flight of stairs when he's drunk. One of them is about an elephant finally crushing a zookeeper noise.
>> Leigh:They're all stories of orcas in the ocean.
>> Grace Todd:Vengeance. Yeah.
>> Leigh:With the yachts.
>> Grace Todd:They're fas. And they're all like two pages long. Yeah, like I spent an entire. I was trying to pick a story for this episode, and I knew I wasn't gonna use these. Cause they're very short and there's not a lot to them unless you take them in a hole.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:But they're very good, and they're very funny in these, like, weird little parable ways.
>> Leigh:As someone who read Aesop's fables a lot as a kid, this appeals to me.
>> Grace Todd:I think you would enjoy them.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And then the second collection she did was called little Tales of misogyny. M. And they're similarly. It's a whole collection, and they're these little vignettes, and each one is a different type of woman. So, like, the coquette, the female novelist, the middle class housewife, the breeder, the mobile bed object, the silent mother in law.
>> Leigh:The mobile bed object.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, it's a.
>> Leigh:Sounds like a category on Grindr.
>> Grace Todd:It's about a woman who makes a career of being a kept woman, and then finally accidentally shacks up with, Mafioso and he kills her.
>> Leigh:You know, I was with her. I was rooting for her to, you know, I'm still rooting for her, you know, I hope the best for her in an alternate universe. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:and, you know, they're not feminist, obviously. Yeah, but they are.
>> Leigh:But are the women the punchline?
>> Grace Todd:Sometimes.
>> Leigh:Okay.
>> Grace Todd:And sometimes not. And I think Highsmith is sometimes accidentally feminist just because she is.
>> Leigh:Dammit, I did a feminism.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, like, because she's. Because she is so critical of everything, of every aspect of the society she lived in, of everyone's faults and foibles. If you are criticizing a society from top to bottom, that happens to be a deeply anti feminist society, every now.
>> Leigh:And then you'll punch up, guess what you're gonna do.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah. Like, you're gonna. It's gonna happen.
>> Leigh:Now, wait a minute. Okay. Was she one of those expats who likes all over the United States constantly. I mean, you know, like, fairly, but, then was like, Europe is so great. Everything's so, so great about Europe is perfect.
>> Grace Todd:Good news.
>> Leigh:Did she on Europe too? Yes, rightfully so. There you go, Patty.
>> Grace Todd:There was not a single place she ever visited or lived that she did not hate. She was kind of polite about Switzerland, where she died, but only because she was trying to get citizenship.
>> Leigh:I got a little weak on her.
>> Grace Todd:Deathbed, and they're very conservative there. And she was like, if I talk to much, they might not let me become a sister.
>> Leigh:Yeah. She's like, I sure love those mountains.
>> Grace Todd:And even then, like, she didn't say anything nice.
>> Leigh:Yeah, she just didn't say anything awful.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah. Like, she spent huge swathes of her adult life living in France and constantly talked the food and also french people and refused to learn or speak French.
>> Leigh:You know that. You know, that's, that's pretty funny, but, him, you too, Patricia.
>> Grace Todd:That's, I think, really the most respectful thing you can do about, like, with and about her legacy is to just be like, you too, Patricia.
>> Leigh:Yeah, I'll you very much. Right back at ya.
>> Grace Todd:Yep. You know, and not in like a. I don't think she deserves any praise as a person, and I don't think she deserves any emulation. And she's a fine example of why you should not allow teenagers to read Mein Kampf, especially if they have. If they already have delusions of grandeur.
>> Leigh:Is that how we got her? Is that how this happened.
>> Grace Todd:It was part of it.
>> Leigh:Oh, no. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:But she also was like, she read.
>> Leigh:It, and she was like, yeah, well.
>> Grace Todd:She read it as a teenager, and parts of it definitely never questioned it again. Well, but she, like, lazily, like, lapsed into antisemitism all the time, especially in her private journals. But also, like, most of her friends.
>> Leigh:What a thing to journal about.
>> Grace Todd:And most of her lovers and most of her professional contacts were jewish.
>> Leigh:Uh-huh.
>> Grace Todd:And she had perfectly fine relations with them and wasn't. I don't know. She just hated everything. Yeah, she just hated everything and everyone and used the laziest possible bigotry to explain, at least to herself.
>> Leigh:Yeah. Such an obvious shield. Well, one thing that I read in the, body is not an apology, is that you can have compassion for people while still holding them accountable. You can have compassion for people, but without excusing their behavior.
>> Grace Todd:I don't think she needs our compassion. She's dead.
>> Leigh:Yeah. It's okay. The compassion extends the point where it's just like, you are obviously so miserable and so scared.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah.
>> Leigh:And you are turning that on yourself, and you're turning it on everyone else to try to beat them to the punch of not liking you. Like, you're just terrified all the time, and you hide behind anger and vitriol.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah.
>> Leigh:And I feel bad for you, but also stop.
>> Grace Todd:Well, I mean, maybe in terms of. Specifically to this podcast. Maybe in terms of.
>> Leigh:Does that have anything to do with the story? No, but.
>> Grace Todd:Well, no, what I was gonna say is, like, maybe in terms of. Of going through the work of dead authors, m maybe extending compassion can include extending compassion to the work itself without failing to hold it accountable.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And I think that's fine. You know, I don't know.
>> Leigh:Well, what you said earlier really resonates, because if I had read this story in a vacuum and then you asked me to describe who I thought the author was, I would not describe the meanest person across the board that I've ever heard of.
>> Grace Todd:The meanest woman who ever lived.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Patricia highsmith. The meanest woman who ever lived.
>> Leigh:Who ever lived. Lived. Lived, lived. Yeah. So it's just interesting that. Interesting. Do you separate art from artist or no?
>> Grace Todd:Yes and no.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:When it comes to classic literature, my stance is that whether or not we like it, the work itself has already had an impact, right?
>> Leigh:M
>> Grace Todd:It's already been published. It's already been read by thousands and thousands, if not millions of people. It's already been handed down. It's already had an effect on all of the literature that came after it.
>> Leigh:It's already been turned into a Netflix show.
>> Grace Todd:It's already been turned into a Netflix show. And the author is dead.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:There's no accountability. They're dead now.
>> Leigh:Yeah. You, Patricia.
>> Grace Todd:And I don't think that attempting to cancel them or whatever from beyond the grave accomplishes anything, because if we forget what these influences are, we will stop seeing them. Right. I said something earlier about antisemitism being the mold and the through line, the mold and the blue cheese of western society. If we do not remember that these bigotries shaped our entire literary canon and address and explore the specific ways in which they did, we won't notice the parts of them we're still carrying forward without even thinking about it.
>> Leigh:Yeah, right. Anti semitism, colonialism, anti black racism, you know, genocide. The list, all of it goes on. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Misogyny, rape, cult. Like, it's just bad.
>> Leigh:That's very true. You have to remem. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:But I think that we can and should be very alert to what we are publishing now. The authors who are still alive, whose work can still be engaged with as part of their legacy, whose attitudes can still be engaged with. I think that anyone still giving JK Rowling any money is a dip.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:She's a objectively horrible person who has proved over and over again that she does not care who she hurts.
>> Leigh:Yeah, fuck her. I'm trying to think of a Harry Potter joke, but I just don't even care.
>> Grace Todd:Because those.
>> Leigh:Because guardian Levio. Shut your mouth.
>> Grace Todd:Because we know what she thinks. We know what bigotries she is working with.
>> Leigh:Yeah, she's got a Twitter.
>> Grace Todd:And a lot of people who care a lot more about this than I do have gone through the books and written thoughtful and compelling academic pieces about all of the little bigotries that are hidden in those books. We do not have to allow them to become part of the canon.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:We don't have to keep perpetuating them. We can let them go.
>> Leigh:Yeah. Like, I know a lot of people who really love Harry Potter.
>> Grace Todd:Sure.
>> Leigh:And I, think that is an important distinction to make, is that you can let that have that place in your heart and your memory as much as you want. Like, you can take that art, you can appreciate it for what it was and what it meant to you, and also accept the reality of who that person is now. And stop giving them your fucking more money.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah.
>> Leigh:And stop giving them the platform.
>> Grace Todd:You know, we are deciding right now what will become the canon we hand down to generations after us. And I think we should choose it carefully.
>> Leigh:Yes.
>> Grace Todd:So do I separate art from artist?
>> Leigh:Sometimes, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:It depends on the context.
>> Leigh:Yes.
>> Grace Todd:It's very nuanced.
>> Leigh:That is the answer to most questions.
>> Grace Todd:I really thought we'd wind up talking more about the sort of contemporary side of the story, but I guess it's pretty self explanatory.
>> Leigh:What's the contemporary side of the story?
>> Grace Todd:Just how contemporary it feels in terms of the very specific grift he pulled off. But I feel like it's. It's probably just very self explanatory, I.
>> Leigh:Would say for that, I would recommend listening to the podcast maintenance phase, where most episodes are just this sort of thing happening. Grifts in real life, what's the biggest grift you have? Uphold?
>> Grace Todd:Girls, griffs and Gaslight gatekeep girl, boss. Gaslight gatekeep girl grift.
>> Leigh:Guess what? Gatekeep girl grifter.
>> Grace Todd:All right, who is your favorite of the contemporary grifters that have floated up out of the aether in the last.
>> Leigh:Oh, man.
>> Grace Todd:Like somebody who managed to do exactly one thing right, maybe by accident, and then just ran with it into the sunset.
>> Leigh:I don't know. I've had bosses like that. Fyre festival was pretty funny. I watched both those documentaries. Fyre festival was definitely pretty funny.
>> Grace Todd:Those are some craigs. Those are some solid craigs.
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah. Just big Craig energy.
>> Grace Todd:Massive Craig energy. Just the kind of people that, you know, didn't intend to wind up in charge of a music festival and then.
>> Leigh:Somehow were that one guy. Well, he seemed pretty intent on it.
>> Grace Todd:I just feel like, you know, there's like, a running thing about, like, whether or not Donald Trump really thought he would become president when he started trying to run for president.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And the point is moot. He's terrifying.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:But I get the vibe that a lot more con artists are Craigs than we realize.
>> Leigh:Oh, for sure.
>> Grace Todd:And that they don't ever expect to get as far as they do, and then suddenly they've gotten too far.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And they can't go back.
>> Leigh:Yeah. No. Yeah. Cause you got a lot of money on it.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah.
>> Leigh:Do you have a favorite grifter?
>> Grace Todd:Ooh, I have a special spot in my heart for that woman who was pretending to be the, like, vaguely european heiress.
>> Leigh:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anna Delvey. Why? Do you look poor? Yeah. You know that. I mean, that's an impressive griff.
>> Grace Todd:I respect the grind for Anna Delvey. She was working.
>> Leigh:She. She did it.
>> Grace Todd:That is the difference, right, between, a mediocre white man failing up and never having to actually do his job ever again.
>> Leigh:Yeah. And a young in an icon, a legend woman. The moment dadiba, fighting the patriarchy.
>> Grace Todd:Grinding away on her grift.
>> Leigh:Yes. Rising grind, gaslighting.
>> Grace Todd:She is gatekeeping. She is girl bossing. M. It is a full time job.
>> Leigh:Yes, I agree, America.
>> Grace Todd:This is apparently now an Anna Delvey fan podcast. Also the Theranos lady. Honestly, Elizabeth Holmes, I'm more impressed than anything else that. Yeah, I mean, she's a bad person.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:But, like, damn wild. Yeah.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:All right, well, woo. I. This has been. This has been an adventure. Thanks, thanks so much for coming down this road with me.
>> Leigh:Thank you for guiding me.
>> Grace Todd:Do you have any closing thoughts on, where the action is or Highsmith.
>> Leigh:Or what do we think happened to Tom?
>> Grace Todd:Tom?
>> Leigh:Sexy photo daddy.
>> Grace Todd:Sexy photo daddy. Tom probably had a long, wonderful career, whereas I'm guessing Craig seems like he probably sharply fell off and then found himself with no money. And, you know, I feel like Craig.
>> Leigh:Wound up on tv. Mmm. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And then probably had some kind of scandal.
>> Leigh:Scandal, yeah, breakdown. I don't know.
>> Grace Todd:Yeah, yeah. Craig seems like there would be, like.
>> Leigh:A wound, up on tv, lot of money, a lot of, like, donations. And then was, like, fully doing a big financial fraud.
>> Grace Todd:Oh, yeah.
>> Leigh:Yeah. And, like, went to, I don't know, got busted by the feds.
>> Grace Todd:He'd be one of those ones where he was fully doing a big financial fraud through sheer stupidity. Like, wasn't even doing it on purpose and would still wind up going down.
>> Leigh:He just had the wrong formula plugged into the spreadsheet or something. Yeah, yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Or, like, just would just be like, I have to pay taxes. What, me?
>> Leigh:I'm just a little guy.
>> Grace Todd:I think Tom clearly has an excellent understanding of work life balance, and he probably just spent the rest of his life in the town in Wyoming. And he probably found a very hot partner of whatever gender he preferred and took great nude photos of his partner.
>> Leigh:In his off time, got in a boudoir of photography. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:And had a lovely career, a nice life, maybe kids, if he is into that kind of thing.
>> Leigh:Sure.
>> Grace Todd:And when he finally saw the news about Craig's downfall, he chuckled a little to himself, but not in a mean way.
>> Leigh:Oh, Craig. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Maybe even, like, sent Craig, ah, like, a postcard. Being like, hey, buddy.
>> Leigh:Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Put a little money in his canteen.
>> Leigh:Aw.
>> Grace Todd:when he's in the. In the pen for doing. Doing white collar crimes. Yeah, I think that's what happened to Tom.
>> Leigh:I think that's very nice.
>> Grace Todd:Beautiful photo, daddy.
>> Leigh:Mm
>> Grace Todd:Well, thanks for being here.
>> Leigh:Thanks for having me.
>> Grace Todd:I really enjoyed it.
>> Leigh:Yes.
>> Grace Todd:And thank, you all so much for being here today. I hope you enjoyed our somewhat unwieldy but I think very fun conversation.
>> Leigh:Important.
>> Grace Todd:be a better dinner guest than Patricia Highsmith was. That's my advice for everyone today.
>> Leigh:Yeah, snails are cool and all, but they don't excuse, racism.
>> Grace Todd:So true. Yes.
>> Leigh:This is.
>> Grace Todd:We're gonna do a mug that says that snails don't excuse racism. It'll just be a little snail being like, we will be back next week with more alarmingly relevant book content.
>> Leigh:Woo.
>> Grace Todd:And, in the meanwhile, if you can, this week, this month, this pay period, consider supporting a living author because they could sure use the love.
>> Leigh:But like a cool one. Yeah.
>> Grace Todd:Like. Yeah. One who doesn't suck.
>> Leigh:Yeah. All right. Yeah. Bye. Hi.
>> Grace Todd:Didn't read it was created, written, recorded and edited by me, grace Todd. You can follow the show on Instagram or Twitter. didn'tread it.
>> Leigh:Our theme song is books written, performed and recorded by William Albritton.
>> Grace Todd:For sources cited and a full list of episodes, you can visit us at didn'tread it pod.com. If you enjoyed the show, please consider leaving us a review. It makes a big difference and we appreciate it immensely. If you did not enjoy the show, we are accepting applications for a full time nemesis at didntread itpodmail ah.com. Special thanks to Blackiris Social Club in Richmond, Virginia, and to Pescatrio Publishing.