Editors Reads Verdict
Highsmith's Greece novel — a psychological thriller that uses the ancient landscape to deepen a modern story of complicity, father-son dynamics, and mutual destruction.
What We Loved
- The Greek setting is beautifully rendered — Highsmith knew and loved Greece
- The dynamic between Rydal and Chester is among her most psychologically complex
- The Oedipal subtext is handled with subtlety
Minor Drawbacks
- Slower paced than her American novels
- Colette is underwritten
Key Takeaways
- → The Double again — two men who reflect each other across generations
- → Greece as a landscape that amplifies rather than resolves moral ambiguity
- → Complicity as a form of intimacy
| Author | Patricia Highsmith |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Grove Press |
| Pages | 260 |
| Published | January 1, 1964 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime Fiction, Psychological Thriller |
| Difficulty | Beginner |
| Best For | Highsmith fans; readers visiting Greece; psychological thriller enthusiasts |
Rydal Keener is twenty-five, American, educated, and adrift. He has come to Greece on money borrowed or taken from a father he resents — a father who, in a way he cannot quite articulate, he has been trying to escape his whole life. He drifts through Athens, picking up tourists, running small scams, and doing very little of what he told himself he came here to do.
Chester MacFarland is older, smoothly charming, and on the run from something in America with his younger wife Colette. When Rydal spots Chester in the lobby of a hotel and Chester accidentally kills a Greek detective, Rydal makes a decision that ties their fates together. He helps. He doesn’t know why — except that Chester is something like a father, and the pull of that relationship overrides the self-interest that would have sent him in the other direction.
The Two Faces of January is Highsmith’s most directly mythological novel — set in the landscape of Greek antiquity, full of father-son dynamics and the violence they generate. It is also one of her most stylistically assured, the Greek light and heat giving her precise prose an unusual warmth. Viggo Mortensen and Oscar Isaac starred in the 2014 film adaptation.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "The Two Faces of January" about?
Athens, 1960s. Rydal Keener, a young American drifting through Greece on his father's money, encounters Chester MacFarland — a small-time con man on the run with his wife Colette. When Chester accidentally kills a man and Rydal witnesses it, the two become fatally linked. A thriller set across Greek landscapes — Athens, Crete, Istanbul — exploring the father-son dynamic between two men who are drawn to each other and threatening to each other.
Who should read "The Two Faces of January"?
Highsmith fans; readers visiting Greece; psychological thriller enthusiasts
What are the key takeaways from "The Two Faces of January"?
The Double again — two men who reflect each other across generations Greece as a landscape that amplifies rather than resolves moral ambiguity Complicity as a form of intimacy
Is "The Two Faces of January" worth reading?
Highsmith's Greece novel — a psychological thriller that uses the ancient landscape to deepen a modern story of complicity, father-son dynamics, and mutual destruction.
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