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I was in this Berlin bar the other night called The Glad Ass with my friend the teenaged runaway, and it was so weird, it had only guys in it.* Eventually I was like Ohhhh, I get it, it's a gay bar! Totally accidental that I ended up there. So we went to another bar, me and this boy I've decided to gallivant around Europe with for no particular reason,** and the weirdest thing: it turned out that was a gay bar too! Lots of men in drag! I was like lol, are there even any straight bars in Europe? Later on, it's a long story but it turned out that I had no choice but to dress in drag myself!*** Anyway, then I went home to my lovely rich wife, who was perfectly understanding.****

* "Tom himself was an object of envy for having a nice-looking boy of sixteen in his company."
** "'I don't know when I'll see you again' [said the boy]. The words of a lover, Tom thought."
*** "Tom sat down again before the mirror, and felt in a fantasy world."
**** "The infrequency of their making love didn't seem to bother her at all. Curious...but convenient, for him."

Patricia Highsmith has returned to Tom Ripley, her cash cow, in a plotless and desultory closet-case of a book that uses the word "boring" 32 times. The only fun part is that it's clearly a wish-fulfillment fantasy for gay men who dream of leaving their wives to tour European gay bars with teenaged boys - and yet there isn't a single sentence that admits it. Highsmith is back at home with Tom's wife, cheerfully saying "I like that young friend of yours!" She appears - at least pretends - not to understand the book she's written.

Surely she did understand; she probably knew perfectly well that closeted men were writing her paycheck. But still: this fourth installment was published in 1974, twenty years after The Talented Mr. Ripley. This is the best she could do?

It's all extremely weird, and a little entertaining. This is easily the gayest Ripley book so far, despite its complete lack of on-page sex. (Off-page, those two are boning.) But aside from giggling at how tremendously gay it's pretending not to be, there's frankly nothing to recommend this book. Ripley's sense of fun, like his sexuality, is so far back in the closet that Highsmith has lost it.