The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith

First published in 1969; republished by the Library of America in Crime Novels of the 1960s, Volume 2 on September 12, 2023

The Tremor of Forgery is one of four novels collected in Crime Novels of the 1960s, Volume 2. The other three are The Fiend by Margaret Millar, Doll by Ed McBain, and Run Man Run by Chester Himes. I don’t know much about Millar. I read a fair amount of McBain when I was younger. I’m a big fan of Himes but a bigger fan of Patricia Highsmith, so I decided to read this novel first. Maybe I’ll get to the others at some point.

The Tremor of Forgery takes place in 1967. We know the year because the Six Day War begins and ends in the middle of the story.

Howard Ingham is a writer. He lives in New York and is engaged to Ina Palant, a writer who works for CBS. Ingham has traveled to Tunisia to work on a screenplay for John Castlewood. As he waits for Castlewood to arrive, he pokes around, trying to soak up atmosphere before he starts writing. I suspect that Highsmith did the same. She paints a vivid word picture of Tunis and surrounding villages.

While waiting for Castlewood, Ingham meets another American, Francis Adams, who professes to be an unofficial ambassador spreading “the American way of life.” Ingham refers to Adams as OWL, Our Way of Life. Adams manages to be both antisemitic and anti-Arab, which he regards as evidence that he, like God, is a true American. Adams supports the Vietnam War and hates Russia. Ingham thinks he might be a spy.

After a few days, Ingham learns that, for tragic reasons, Castlewood won’t be joining him. He decides to hang out and wait for a meaningful letter from Ina. Ingham eventually learns that Ina is the kind of woman who can’t go a few days without a man’s attention. If he is gone, some other man will do.

Ingham turns down a gay man’s pass but befriends him. He beds an American woman, rather unsuccessfully. All of this nonjudgmental sexual freedom is pretty daring for 1969, but Highsmith was a writer who wrote about the world that interested her, not the world guardians of morality wanted Americans to see.

Ingham begins to encounter ominous events. He stumbles upon the body of a man who has been stabbed to death. His jacket is stolen from his car and his cufflinks are stolen from his bungalow. Later, his violent response to a burglar adds to his worries. Adams intuits that Inghan did something harmful and makes relentless efforts to persuade Ingham to confess.

Deciding that a change of location might be best, Ingham abandons his bungalow for a cheap room with no amenities in the same building as his gay friend. The primitive nature of his lodging causes Adams to wonder whether Ingham is punishing himself. Ingham uses his time to begin writing a book about an embezzler who does good deeds with his stolen money.

The story moves forward at a steady pace, creating characters and atmosphere while introducing occasional dramatic moments — Castlewood's fate, Ingham’s confrontation with the burglar, the dead man in the street, the thefts of Ingham’s property, Adams’ belief that Ingham is keeping secrets — that might or might not become the plot’s focus. Whether various crimes to which Ingham is exposed have anything to do with the plot is a mystery for much of the story. Ingham’s violent act probably isn’t a crime, but it becomes the novel’s psychological focus.

In the meantime, the characters have interesting discussions (from a late 1960s perspective) about sexuality, religion, Israel, the Vietnam War, individuality, and morality. Whether moral values change with the place in which one lives becomes a key to the story. Ingham “had the awful feeling that in the months he had been here, his own character or principles had collapsed, or disappeared.” Ingham tries to work out his own views on morality through the protagonist in the book he’s writing, a man who might or might not be seen as morally innocent, or whose conduct might at least be forgivable.

He also vacillates about the kind of relationship he wants to have with Ina, if any at all. He is troubled by his other temptations. “Wasn’t sleeping with Ina a form of deception now?” He regrets breaking up with his previous lover, or he doesn’t, depending on his mood.

None of the characters are quite happy with their lives, although they are not overwhelmingly sad. None are particularly likable but none are bad people who deserve to be disliked. Yet Highsmith made me care about Ingham and his gay friend and Ina (Adams, not so much).

Highsmith generates a surprising amount of suspense in a book that doesn’t depend on an explosive ending to wow the reader. Highsmith eschews reliance on the traditional elements that produce thrills and chills in conventional crime novels yet holds the reader’s attention with a low-key anticipation of dread that never disappears. The story is ultimately about a few digressive weeks in the life of a man who dances around his fears without confronting or understanding them, never quite deciding who he wants to be or how he would ever change. He is nevertheless a man who has a life ahead of him. Whether it will be a better life, nobody knows, but that’s true of all lives.

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