A toxic relationship

In Deep Water Patricia Highsmith has created a truly toxic relationship. Vic Van Allen's courtship of his wife Melinda was "like breaking a wild horse", but after several years of marriage and the birth of a daughter, Trixie, "she was not attractive to him as a woman." The couple live separately in the same house, where Melinda invites her men-friends and gets drunk with them, and where Vic tends his herbs and snails.

On the surface Vic accepts his wife's extra-marital affairs with dispassion, but his actions portray a deeper rage. He is constantly looking to score petty points over Melinda. At friends' parties, he won't dance "simply because his wife liked to dance." At home he stays "up until four or five or even seven in the morning," simply because his wife's male guest "would have preferred him to retire and leave him alone" with her. It is truly a pernicious relationship.

Deep Water traces Vic's gradual breakdown and the explosive release of his bottled-up emotions. It's like watching a car approach a cliff edge, the driver ignoring the warning signs, the outcome inevitable.

Although I enjoyed the book, preferred Highsmith's earlier Strangers on a Train for its suspense. Deep Water's set-up was not entirely credible. Why on earth did Melinda stay with Vic? The most sensible and normal character is the six-year-old Trixie, but one wonders what will become of her with such toxic parents.