Author: Patricia Highsmith
This book is about Mr. Thomas (Tom) Ripley. Tom seems normal, but has some obsessive tendencies. He also seems to be a compulsive liar, who enjoys making up stories about his life when he talks to others. He lives in New York and is approached by a man who claims his son is living in Italy and he wants him to return. The man had been following Ripley because he knew that Ripley and his son were acquaintances at one point, so he thought Ripley may be able to persuade him to return home.
So Ripley is given money and expenses to travel to Italy and attempt to convince Richard (or commonly referred to as Dickie) to return home.
Soon after arriving in the small town Dickie is supposed to be staying in, Ripley runs into Dickie, and his friend Marge relaxing at the beach. Ripley introduces himself, but is surprised at Dickie’s reaction, as he is not overly friendly, nor happy to see Ripley, and doesn’t seem to want to continue to connect. This frustrates Ripley and he obsesses over how to win Dickie’s friendship. Eventually he is able to connect with Dickie by admitting to him his parents plan and that they sent Dickie to Italy to retrieve him. This sparks a connection between the two, and they start hanging out more.
Marge however begins to dislike Tom over this time. Marge is in love with Dickie, but Dickie isn’t really in love with her, but he does really care about her, and it is implied he owes her something, but I don’t recall ever learning what.
Ripley and Dickie start spending more time together, and travelling to various places throughout Italy and even make plans to visit France. Ripley moved into Dickie’s place because they agreed it was better than him continuing to rent a hotel with Dickie’s dads money, when they could instead use it on travel. Things seem to be going well with the friendship, and Ripley is very happy about that and seems to really like Dickie, and actually begins to obsess over him. Tom keeps finding ways to exclude Marge, and seemed to drive a bit of a wedge in her and Dickie’s relationship. In a particularly obsessive day, while Ripley is at Dickie’s house alone, he goes into his room and starts trying on his nice suits. He notices when he dresses like Dickie, he actually looks very similar, his hair is just a bit darker. However Dickie walks in on Ripley trying on his clothes and is quite weirded out by Tom’s behaviour.
From that point on, Tom notices Dickie seems more hesitant about Tom. Tom suspects that Dickie told Marge, and Marge has since been poisoning Dickie against him.
Dickie continues to pull away from Tom, and is even passive aggressively cancelling some of their travel plans. Tom is beginning to be driven mad by this.
Tom and Dickie are on a small trip together, where Dickie officially tells Tom that he will not be going on the big trip they had been planning together with him, and wants to spend time with Marge. Tom is shaken by this, and here we can see his “dark triad” tendencies coming out a lot more heavily. I say dark triad because I can’t really pin which one he displays most dominantly, whether it’s narcissism, or psychopathy, my instinct is he is psychopathic. Within that same day, Tom gets to the place where he decides he wants to kill Dickie. He suggests a boat ride, and they rent a boat and drive it far out from shore. Ripley strikes Dickie with an oar, ties his feet to a block of concrete in the boat used for mooring, and throws him overboard. There is blood in the boat, so Tom drives it to a far away shore, and scuttles the boat.
At this point in the story, Tom decides the best course of action is to become Dickie himself. He doesn’t like living life as “Tom Ripley” and would rather be the rich, trust fund, confident guy that Dickie is.
The rest of the book is Tom living as Dickie, fairly convincingly. He goes back to Dickie’s house, steals his clothes, and two rings that Dickie always wore, and takes on his identity. He forges his monthly trust fund cheques so he has money to live on. He spends his time Travelling around Italy and living as his new identity. Things of course slowly start to unravel as he gained confidence in his rouse, and makes mistakes. In one instance, an old friend of Dickie’s heard he was staying somewhere in Rome and managed to track “Dickie” down. Tom ends up killing this person in a panic as well. Tom also narrowly avoids blowing his cover as Marge discovers Dickie’s rings in one of Tom’s suitcases, which Dickie never parts with. But Tom is able to lie his way out of that predicament as well.
The tabloids are starting to get a hold of the story of the murder of Dickie’s friend, as well as Tom’s disappearance and the pressure is rising for Tom. Since Mr. Dickie seems to keep turning up, the police seem to think that Dickie possibly killed Tom Ripley (who hasn’t been seen since the boat trip) and the friend of Dickie.
Despite the increasing heat, Tom’s confidence is high and he is even so bold as to forge himself into Dickie’s will.
Eventually the heat on Dickie is too strong and Tom is forced to go back to living his life as Tom which is disappointing for him.
The book ends with Tom travelling to Greece. He is quite paranoid at this point and is always looking for cops, whom he is sure will arrest him at any moment. However the books ends with most of the knots of suspicion tied up due to Tom’s clever manipulations. Tom seems to get off with no consequences, and Dickie’s inheritance and trust fund on top.
I was a bit surprised and a little disappointed at the ending of the book. I was hoping Tom’s web of lies would collapse around him and he would end up facing the consequences of his decision, or face some hardship at least. There are five Ripley books in the series, so perhaps that happens later on. The five books were written over almost 40 years though, (1955 for The Talented Mr. Ripley, and 1991 for the final book) which makes me question if the series is a bit overly drawn out as well.
One thing I hear often about the Ripley series is peoples discussion of the psychology behind it. I think Highsmith purposefully used some of Freud’s theories and designed characters around it. She does a good job describing Tom’s neuroticism, paranoia, psychopathy, lying, and other traits in this book.
I enjoyed the book overall, but did expect it to be more thrilling than it was.