
The Glass Cell
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Narrated by:
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Tom Taylorson
About this listen
Rife with overtones of Dostoevsky, The Glass Cell, first published in 1964, combines a quintessential Highsmith mystery with a penetrating critique of the psychological devastation wrought by the prison system.
Falsely convicted of fraud, the easygoing but naive Philip Carter is sentenced to six lonely, drug-ravaged years in prison. Upon his release, Carter is a more suspicious and violent man. For those around him, earning back his trust can mean the difference between life and death.
The Glass Cell's bleak and compelling portrait of daily prison life - and the consequences for those who live it - is, sadly, as relevant today as it was when the book was first published.
©1964 Patricia Highsmith. © renewed 1992 by Patricia Highsmith. © 1993 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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People who viewed this also viewed...
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The Blunderer
- By: Patricia Highsmith
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- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
For two years, Walter Stackhouse has been a faithful and supportive husband to his wife, Clara. But she is distant and neurotic, and Walter finds himself harboring gruesome fantasies about her demise. When Clara's dead body turns up at the bottom of a cliff in a manner uncannily resembling the recent death of a woman who was murdered by her husband, Walter finds himself under intense scrutiny.
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-
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- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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-
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- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Tunisia in the mid-1960s, this is the story of Howard Ingham, an American writer who has gone abroad to gather material for a movie too sordid to be set in America. Ingham is cool toward the girlfriend he left behind in New York - but his feelings start to change when she doesn't answer his increasingly aggravated letters and the filmmaker who hired Ingham fails to show in Tunisia.
-
-
From the mind of the genius Patricia Highsmith!
- By Brenda K Ward on 11-30-23
-
A Dog’s Ransom
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of a novel that will give dog owners nightmares for years to come. With an eerie simplicity of style, Highsmith turns our next-door neighbors into sadistic psychopaths, lying in wait among white picket fences and manicured lawns. In A Dog's Ransom, Highsmith blends savage humor with brilliant social satire in this dark tale of a high-minded criminal who hits a wealthy Manhattan couple where it hurts the most.
-
-
Book's Bark is Worse than its Bite.
- By Darwin8u on 05-11-19
-
Those Who Walk Away
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Garrett, a wealthy young American living in Europe, is grieving over the death of his wife. Ray is at a loss for why she would take her own life, but Peggy's father, Ed Coleman, has no such uncertainty - he blames Ray completely. Late one night in Rome, Coleman shoots Ray at point-blank range. He thinks he's had his revenge, but Ray survives and follows Coleman and his wealthy girlfriend to Venice.
-
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Like listening to the B side…
- By Kathryn on 03-04-24
-
Strangers on a Train
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Patricia Highsmith's debut novel, we encounter Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno, passengers on the same train. But while Guy is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno turns out to be a sadistic psychopath who manipulates Guy into swapping murders with him. As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy is trapped in Highsmith's perilous world - where, under the right circumstances, anybody is capable of murder.
-
-
Not my cup of tea
- By jesshway on 11-25-15
-
The Blunderer
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For two years, Walter Stackhouse has been a faithful and supportive husband to his wife, Clara. But she is distant and neurotic, and Walter finds himself harboring gruesome fantasies about her demise. When Clara's dead body turns up at the bottom of a cliff in a manner uncannily resembling the recent death of a woman who was murdered by her husband, Walter finds himself under intense scrutiny.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Patricia on 12-09-16
-
A Suspension of Mercy
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In A Suspension of Mercy, a masterpiece of noir fantasy, Highsmith revels in eliciting the unsettling psychological forces that lurk beneath the surface of everyday contemporary life.
-
-
What??
- By Keedee on 02-19-18
-
The Tremor of Forgery
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Tunisia in the mid-1960s, this is the story of Howard Ingham, an American writer who has gone abroad to gather material for a movie too sordid to be set in America. Ingham is cool toward the girlfriend he left behind in New York - but his feelings start to change when she doesn't answer his increasingly aggravated letters and the filmmaker who hired Ingham fails to show in Tunisia.
-
-
From the mind of the genius Patricia Highsmith!
- By Brenda K Ward on 11-30-23
-
A Dog’s Ransom
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of a novel that will give dog owners nightmares for years to come. With an eerie simplicity of style, Highsmith turns our next-door neighbors into sadistic psychopaths, lying in wait among white picket fences and manicured lawns. In A Dog's Ransom, Highsmith blends savage humor with brilliant social satire in this dark tale of a high-minded criminal who hits a wealthy Manhattan couple where it hurts the most.
-
-
Book's Bark is Worse than its Bite.
- By Darwin8u on 05-11-19
-
Those Who Walk Away
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Garrett, a wealthy young American living in Europe, is grieving over the death of his wife. Ray is at a loss for why she would take her own life, but Peggy's father, Ed Coleman, has no such uncertainty - he blames Ray completely. Late one night in Rome, Coleman shoots Ray at point-blank range. He thinks he's had his revenge, but Ray survives and follows Coleman and his wealthy girlfriend to Venice.
-
-
Like listening to the B side…
- By Kathryn on 03-04-24
-
Strangers on a Train
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Patricia Highsmith's debut novel, we encounter Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno, passengers on the same train. But while Guy is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno turns out to be a sadistic psychopath who manipulates Guy into swapping murders with him. As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy is trapped in Highsmith's perilous world - where, under the right circumstances, anybody is capable of murder.
-
-
Not my cup of tea
- By jesshway on 11-25-15
What listeners say about The Glass Cell
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Darwin8u
- 12-10-19
Letter from a fan in Prison
"Life is funny. It is necessary both to see oneself in perspective and not to see oneself in perspective, yet either one can lead to madness. The two things must be done at the same time."
- Patricia Highsmith, The Glass Cell
An innocent man is sent to prison for six years and once let out, addicted to Morphine, he attempts to reconnect with his son, his wife, and her lover. Highsmith is the master of motivations and psychological thrillers. She knows what makes people tick and what it takes to break the clock. In 1961 she received a fan letter from a fan in prison. Soon they started writing back and forth. She became fascinated with the psychological trauma incarceration can inflict upon a man. There is, underlying almost all of Highsmith's stories, the image that within all men (and women) a bit of the sadist, the criminal, the psychopath. Most of us, however, are never twisted into a position where our own personal monster emerges. Highsmith loves looking at what makes the monster and is amazing in her ability ot describe the mental state of those caught in the dark machine that lurks just under the surfance of our own brain.
This isn't her best, but for fans of Highsmith, don't overlook it.
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