Patricia Highsmith was the brilliant, but notoriously prickly best-selling author of many psychological thrillers - including Strangers on a Train - adapted for screen most famously by Alfred Hitchcock - and her Ripliad series sparked by her novel The Talented Mr Ripley.
A play imagining the her last few months living as a recluse in Switzerland sees a young man arrive at her door to convince her to pen a last Ripley book.
But the reclusive author is living with lung cancer, done with the literary establishment and not inclined to oblige.
And thus the scene is set for the play Switzerland, which is being performed by The Auckland Theatre Company, with Kiwi actor Sarah Peirse as Patricia Highsmith.
Sarah Goodes directed the play's debut in Sydney back in 2014 and is bringing it to the stage in Auckland from September 19.
Left: Sarah Peirse as author Patricia Highsmith. Right: Director Sarah Goodes Photo: Supplied
