<p><i><b>'My secrets - the secrets that everyone has - are here, in black and white.'</b></i><br><br>Before Alfred Hitchcock adapted her debut novel, <i>Strangers on a Train</i>, for the big screen; before Thomas Ripley snaked his way into the canon of psychological suspense; before <i>Carol</i> became a cult classic of romantic obsession, who was Patricia Highsmith?<br><br>Beginning in 1941 and encompassing Highsmith's adventurous twenties, <i>The New York Years</i> is an intimate self-portrait of a young artist, reading voraciously and honing her craft, intertwined with scenes from her dizzying social life, rife with sleepless nights spent in the queer bars of Greenwich Village.<br><br>This condensed edition of Highsmith's monumental <i>Diaries and Notebooks</i> offers all the pleasures of her fiction, along with an unparalleled insight into the life, mind and times of this enigmatic, iconic, trailblazing author. <br><br><b>'One of the most observant and ecstatic accounts . . . about being young and alive in New York City' <i>New York Times</i></b></p>