Rating: 
Summary: Let's not forget OWL!
Review: In her work, The Tremor of Forgery, Highsmith explores issues of forging one's own identity in a world that is very much removed from one's own culture. In this piece one has the ability to view Tunisia through the eyes of those that do not belong, yet continue to see those around them as decidedly other. This portrayal is often amusing as characters, such as Adams, share the wonders of American democracy and "OWL" (Our Way of Life) as they simultaneously choose to exist and thrive outside American culture.It seems that even the main character, Ingham, though seemingly aware of the narrowness of the views of men like Adams, attempts to reinvent the realm in which he is a part, with little or no regard for those that have been a part of the world thus far. Ingham is blissfully unaware of those around him, though he presumes himself to be somewhat of an enlightened individual. This pairing of characters is amusing as it is simultaneously disheartening. The Tremor of Forgery is a fabulous tale that weaves a bit of mystery into a novel that would keep me reading regardless of whether or not I was able to foresee the conclusion. Though this is the first novel I have read by Highsmith, it will certainly not be the last. She is a thrilling author who offers a sometimes scathing and witty view of the American culture and its attempt to wipe out all that does not fit within its boundaries.
Rating: 
Summary: The Tremor of Forgery
Review: In what some consider to be Patricia Highsmith?s finest novel, The Tremor of Forgery explores a young writer?s descent into moral ambiguity under the hot sun of 1960s Tunisia. Stranded by a suicide, heat-induced torpor, and a growing severance from all Western ties, Howard Ingham finds himself the only witness, and perhaps even participant, in the disappearance of a local pick pocket.
The way that suicide and murder and espionage, such major events, play such a minor role in the action of the novel leaves an odd sense of dissonance in the mind in the reader (one listening to Parker and Gillespe?s ?A Night in Tunisia? may, in fact, get the same feeling). Highsmith juxtaposes her hero?s emotional ambivalence with his supplanting into Araby. Also at hand in the novel is an ongoing reference to Fyodor Dostoevsky?s Crime and Punishment that serves not so much as a retake as a running commentary. Though her references are tactful, fans of the Russian author will undoubtedly prefer his landmark work to a twentieth-century rebuff that emphasizes the sham values of the times. Interesting description and the anchoring to a larger work of literature cause this reader to give an otherwise dry work a modest score of four thumbs up (out of ten).
Rating:
Summary: The Tremor of Forgery
Review: In what some consider to be Patricia Highsmith?s finest novel, The Tremor of Forgery explores a young writer?s descent into moral ambiguity under the hot sun of 1960s Tunisia. Stranded by a suicide, heat-induced torpor, and a growing severance from all Western ties, Howard Ingham finds himself the only witness, and perhaps even participant, in the disappearance of a local pick pocket.
The way that suicide and murder and espionage, such major events, play such a minor role in the action of the novel leaves an odd sense of dissonance in the mind in the reader (one listening to Parker and Gillespe?s ?A Night in Tunisia? may, in fact, get the same feeling). Highsmith juxtaposes her hero?s emotional ambivalence with his supplanting into Araby. Also at hand in the novel is an ongoing reference to Fyodor Dostoevsky?s Crime and Punishment that serves not so much as a retake as a running commentary. Though her references are tactful, fans of the Russian author will undoubtedly prefer his landmark work to a twentieth-century rebuff that emphasizes the sham values of the times. Interesting description and the anchoring to a larger work of literature cause this reader to give an otherwise dry work a modest score of four thumbs up (out of ten).
Rating: 
Summary: Bad writing keeps me reading
Review: It's a hit and run driver sort of plot. A man thinks he may have killed someone but is scared of finding out if he did. He tries to conceal what happened, tells himself he was not to blame, that it was an accident, that the victim deserved it. The net closes around him and he is pressured to confess. It's set in Tunis amongst a group of ex-patriates. I agree with the reviewers who say she's a bad writer. Highsmith breaks all the rules of fiction. When she wants to give back story she stops the action dead for a long chunk of exposition. She intrudes irrelevant peices of business that have nothing to do with the plot. She includes banal conversations that lead nowhere. Somehow this works for her. She makes you believe that these things could be happening in a boring everyday world and then hits you with bizarre violent action. The effect is mesmerizing and I find I keep coming back for more.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece!
Review: My favorite book a very long time. It 's chock-full of good ingredients. The descriptions of an exotic locale put the reader right there with the interesting main character who has parts of all of us in him. Not necessarily the good parts. The story is suspensful, and the writing is just the best. Ms. Highsmith has written the story as if she were placing stones carefully on top of the ones she's already set and at the end you see she's built a palace.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Outstanding even among Highsmith's output. She says she is interested in the effects of guilt on her characters. She sure is! I recommend all the Highsmith novels, but especially those from the 60s.
Rating:
Summary: Highsmith's Exotic Americans
Review: Patricia Highsmith's The Tremor of Forgery unfolds in the strange and vaguely menacing land of Tunisia, that "most advanced" of African countries. Anyone familiar with the work of William Burroughs, will easily recognize the social landscape, a sandy, boisterous land full of thieves, homosexuals, cous-cous, and all of those other tried and true hallmarks of the arab world. For that matter, anyone familiar with the work of Indiana Jones will recognize the scoial landscape. Nevertheless, however crude the "arab scene" may appear, Highsmith's novel is on the whole a highly nuanced, thoroughly provocative work. Touching on everything from the costs of nationalism to the scars of colonialism, the novel attempts much, and rarely falters
The book's protagonist, Howard Ingham, is a New York writer, newly arrived in Tunisia to supervise the filming of one of his satirical novels. While waiting for both his production partner John and girlfriend Ina to arrive from the States, Inham grows increasingly disoriented and despondent, wanting nothing more than contact with those who he's left back home. Finally, a letter from home arrives, but it's nothing like the correspondence Ingham anticipated; indeed, there's been a terrible accident back in New York. Ingham is suddenly wholely impotent, helpless to comprehend, let alone alleviate, the situation at home.
Resigning himself to making the most of his time abroad, Ingham slowly becomes perfectly acclimated to the Tunisian culture; or, to be fair, what he and his transplanted anglo buddies imagine the culture to be. Yet, Despite the growing comfort with the surroundings, one still senses a clear weariness towards the vast lot of arabs. Aiding his paranoia his two newly befriended compatriots, the jingoistic Francis Adams, and the bohemian dutchmen Jensen. Fow while both Adams and Jensen live and prosper in Tunisia, both keep the authentic culture of the country at arm's length, both opting for cocoons of misinformation and condescension instead. Both Adams and Jensen are well defined, delightfully complicated characters, and Highsmith gives the reader ample material for dissection.
With characters as full as these interacting in so strange an environment, the events that begin to compromise the great mystery of this mystery novel almost seem distracting. Perhaps they're intended to be, as Highsmith seems more interested in writing a fine novel than confronting the reader with a number of "a-ha!" sorts of moments. Whatever the case, this a fine, though-provoking read, one that should not be dismissed by the high-minded on account of its mystery pedigree.
Rating:
Summary: Detective Novel or Psychological Study?
Review: Rarely has the detective genre been so successful in going beyond the mystery at hand to delve into the deeper obscurities of the human soul. In Patricia Highsmith's The Tremor of Forgery, American writer Howard Ingham finds himself unexpectedly alone in Tunisia after his friend and colleague commits suicide following an affair with Ingham's girlfriend, Ina, back in the States. Set during the Vietnam War and the six-day war between Israel and Arab countries in 1967, turmoil seems to surround the shaken writer. In his loneliness, he befriends fellow travelers, Francis Adams, an American patriot, and Anders Jensen, a Danish painter. These acquaintances help to convince Ingham to stay on in Tunisia while he finishes his book, allowing Highsmith to paint a landscape of orientalism and intrigue through the native people and their customs. At the height of the plot, when Ingham accidentally kills an old Arab attempting to commit robbery, he must face his own conscience and confidence in order to continue with his writing. Through his interactions with the more laid back, yet still industrial atmosphere of Tunisia, Ingham recovers from the shock while spending time with both the natives and his friends, all of whom serve as windows through which he can look upon himself. His guilt of not reporting the crime grows embittered by Adam's nosiness, leading Ingham to consider his natural duty and moral identity. While the search for one's identity is abstract, so is the conclusion of the novel, which lacks a clear solution. It is evident that strength was added to the book through the foreign setting as it facilitated Ingham's moral alteration by forcing him to consider everything, including himself, in a new light. Well written with detail, developed characters, and the Tunisian culture, The Tremor of Forgery is an excellent psychological study set in the mystery genre.
Rating:
Summary: Detective Novel or Psychological Study?
Review: Rarely has the detective genre been so successful in going beyond the mystery at hand to delve into the deeper obscurities of the human soul. In Patricia Highsmith's The Tremor of Forgery, American writer Howard Ingham finds himself unexpectedly alone in Tunisia after his friend and colleague commits suicide following an affair with Ingham's girlfriend, Ina, back in the States. Set during the Vietnam War and the six-day war between Israel and Arab countries in 1967, turmoil seems to surround the shaken writer. In his loneliness, he befriends fellow travelers, Francis Adams, an American patriot, and Anders Jensen, a Danish painter. These acquaintances help to convince Ingham to stay on in Tunisia while he finishes his book, allowing Highsmith to paint a landscape of orientalism and intrigue through the native people and their customs. At the height of the plot, when Ingham accidentally kills an old Arab attempting to commit robbery, he must face his own conscience and confidence in order to continue with his writing. Through his interactions with the more laid back, yet still industrial atmosphere of Tunisia, Ingham recovers from the shock while spending time with both the natives and his friends, all of whom serve as windows through which he can look upon himself. His guilt of not reporting the crime grows embittered by Adam's nosiness, leading Ingham to consider his natural duty and moral identity. While the search for one's identity is abstract, so is the conclusion of the novel, which lacks a clear solution. It is evident that strength was added to the book through the foreign setting as it facilitated Ingham's moral alteration by forcing him to consider everything, including himself, in a new light. Well written with detail, developed characters, and the Tunisian culture, The Tremor of Forgery is an excellent psychological study set in the mystery genre.
Rating:
Summary: Tremors and Typewriters in Tunisia
Review: Seen The Talented Mr. Ripley? How about Hitchcock's classic Strangers on a Train? They were made nearly half a century apart, but they both sprang originally from the brilliant mind of Patricia Highsmith. In her 1967 mystery Tremor of Forgery, she takes us to a small hotel in the middle of Tunisia, a country in Africa that most Americans hadn't heard of in 1967 and are probably still unfamiliar with today. Our protagonist, Howard Ingham, is a writer dispatched to write a screenplay set in the area but writing a novel of his own sidetracks him. Not to mention the severe problems faced by the people trying to produce the film. Some mysterious thefts in his apartment and the strange actions of his American friends in the area, not to mention his conflict with his girlfriend back in the U.S., complicate things further. Oh yes, he also bashes an attempted robber over the head with his typewriter and never finds out whether or not he killed him. The event is covered up by the staff at his hotel and is left forgotten by everyone but one of Ingham's friends. This book has a heavy relevance in the wake of September 11, because it shows that U.S. relations towards outsiders, particularly Arabs, have always been strained and it shows how little we have always known about each other. Ingham is truly a stranger in a strange land in Tunisia. He never makes anything but the most remedial attempts to talk to the natives of the land and his closest American friend is a gung-ho patriot that he doesn't even think too highly of. The comic relief provided by this jingoistic patriotism (keep in mind that this takes place during Vietnam) is sweet and the characterizations are rich all around. The title of the book ends up being the title of the book Ingham is writing while staying in Tunisia. It refers to the subtle imperfection in the beginning and end of forged signatures. It gives away the nervousness of the person behind it. Ironically, he decides not to use the title since it doesn't really fit his narrative but there seems to be a tremor in his every action after Ingham himself commits a serious crime that he goes unpunished for. Ingham's conflict about whether or not to take the blame for his actions and whether or not it even matters is intriguing. There are numerous meditations on whether morality is a cultural construct or whether it is inherently in us all.
Highsmith doesn't have any easy answers, but Tremor is still both entertaining and thought provoking.
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