Small G: a Summer Idyll A Virago Modern Classic

<p><b>BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF <i>THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY</i>, <i>CAROL</i> AND <i>STRANGERS ON A TRAIN</i></b><br><br><b>Completed just months before Patricia Highsmith's death in 1995, <i>Small g</i> explores the labyrinthine intricacies of passion, sexuality, and jealousy in a charming tale of love misdirected.</b><br><br><b>'It has a serenity rarely found in Highsmith's world' GEOFFREY ELBORN, <i>GUARDIAN</i> </b><br><b><br>'What is most remarkable in this novel is the empathy . . . with which Highsmith writes about gay men' FRANCIS KING, <i>SPECTATOR <br><br></i>'Like Ripley, [Highsmith's characters] burn in a reader's memory'<i> L</i></b><b><i>OS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW</i></b> <br><br>At the 'small g', a Zurich bar known for its not exclusively gay clientele, the lives of a small community are played out one summer.<br><br>Rickie Markwalder is a designer whose lover Petey was brutally murdered. Rickie and his performing dog Lulu are regulars at the bar, as are vindictive Renate, a seamstress, and her teenage apprentice Luisa. Into their lives comes Teddie, impressionable and beautiful, and a catalyst for the series of events that will change everything.<br><br>Patricia Highsmith's final novel is an intricate exploration of love and sexuality, the depths of spite and the triumph of human kindness. It is a work that, in the tradition of Shakespeare's <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i>, shows us how bizarre and unpredictable love can be. <i>Small g</i>, in the words of her biographer Andrew Wilson, is an 'extended fairy tale suggesting that . . . happiness is precarious and . . . romance should be embraced'.</p>