Strangers on a Train

As a suspense novel, Strangers on a Train didn't read like I expected it to. Modern thrillers tend to follow the same formula: 200-pages of mediocre plot and characters all leading up to some twist or groundbreaking moment. But this classic novel by Patricia Highsmith is a slow burn where you pretty much expect everything that is going to happen, and it's all the more unsettling when it does.

Strangers on a Train was much better written than most thrillers I have read. I think some people go into it with the wrong expectations and think, “this is boring, why isn't the author messing with ME?” But this novel is more of a character study. The thought processes of Highsmith's characters are extremely believable, even when they are annoying or pathetic, and murder is treated simultaneously as a casual and grave occurrence. I found her writing extremely impressive and hope to emulate her in my own writing.

Also, there were definitely some Freudian overtones appropriate for the time (1950). It makes sense why Alfred Hitchcock chose to make a movie of it.