The Glass Cell – Patricia Highsmith (1964)

This is the fifth Patricia Highsmith novel that I have read – and like the others I have read, it is something of a page turner, and the narrative zips along at quite a pace. However, it is also the one I have enjoyed the least. The Glass Cell was Patricia Highsmith’s tenth novel, its central theme the physical and psychological effects of wrongful imprisonment.

“The justice I have received, I shall give back.”

Apparently the first edition of this novel came with a warning on the jacket about an opening scene that was ‘almost unacceptable.’ I understand why the warning was issued, the scene coming in the first few pages is pretty horrendous and I certainly won’t describe it in any detail here. This really is Highsmith at her most cruel. The novel came about after Highsmith had spent some time writing to a prison inmate, she went on to undertake some detailed research into prison life – and her research shows, the prison scenes in The Glass Cell are shudderingly realistic.

Philip Carter feels like a fairly typical Highsmith protagonist – a young engineer with an attractive wife and a young son who only has his own hard work to thank for his success. As the novel opens Philip is about three months into a ten year prison sentence for fraud. A crime of which he is completley innocent.

“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.”

In the opening few pages Philip is tortured by prison guards which results in an injury he will have to carry with him for the rest of his life – it also sets him on a path of morphine addiction. Philip spends a lot of time in the prison hospital – ending up working there after he is back on his feet. From time to time Philip is visited by his wife; Hazel and David Sullivan a lawyer friend who is helping to try and get him released. Bit, by bit the hope of release ebbs away, and the violent, unpredictable world of the prison starts to change him. He also starts to wonder about his wife and their friend David Sullivan, doubts and suspicions begin to creep in.

I had expected the prison section to be fairly short – but in fact it goes on for over a hundred pages. Like Philip himself the reader has to endure the spirit deadening reality of a lengthy prison stay. During this time, Philip only makes one real friend, Max a forger who is more on the same wavelength as Philip. The two practise speaking French and after a time Max starts to become more real to Philip than the people he has left on the outside. When Max is killed in a prison riot – Philip returns to the isolation he lived with before. He spends time reading; Voltaire, Balzac and Swift among others and even tries to stop the morphine in time for his release.

Finally, after six hard years Philip is released for good behaviour – in the eyes of the judiciary and the world he is a guilty man still. He immediately travels to New York where his wife and son are living. This is where David Sullivan is living too, never far way from Philip’s wife and son, they might almost be his family instead.

“And everything was made of paper: sentences, pardons, pleas, bad records, demerits, proof of guilt, but never, it seemed, proof of innocence. If there were no paper, Carter felt, the entire judicial system would collapse and disappear.”

Now Philip must try to pick up the threads of his life. His wife has a good job now, she’s been holding things together for six years, his son is now twelve and clearly adores David Sullivan. Getting a job is the first item on the agenda and David has pledged to help him – but this proves harder than Philip realised. With a prison sentence behind him – his protestations of innocence don’t impress everyone – a six year gap in his CV is hard to overcome or explain away.

During this difficult period, Philip’s suspicions about Hazel and David are reawakened – with some justification it seems. Added to which, Gawill, a man Philip knew before prison and who has his own reasons for hating David Sullivan is keen to drip poison in Philip’s ear whenever possible. Gawill is desperate to rid himself of Sullivan and perhaps he can persuade Philip that he does too. We know instantly that Gawill is not an honest man, he is another typical Highsmith character – the sinister manipulator. Gawill is keen to tell Philip everything he knows about Sullivan and Hazel – he’s been watching Sullivan for some time.

Philip is not the same man as the one who went into prison, the violence he experienced and witnessed all around him has had an effect. Philip is carrying a sense of betrayal, wounded by the years he lost – it seems only a matter of time before the consequences of this are felt by others.  

The pace of the novel definitely increases in the second part, following Philip’s release, though I found the whole novel very readable – it is decidedly grim. In many ways this is a very impressive novel – though I suspect it divides some readers. The Glass Cell is quite disturbing, but as ever Highsmith ensures her readers keep turning those pages.