Literature and Religious Fundamentalism, Patricia Highsmith’s People Who Knock at the Door, Uncorrected Page Proof 1985

Patricia Highsmith Literature

First Edition

Highsmith, Patricia. People Who Knock at the Door, 1985, examines born-again Christianity, abortion, parental authority, and moral coercion through the disintegration of an American family. Originally published in Britain in 1983 and issued in the United States two years later, the novel follows teenager Arthur Alderman after his father Richard undergoes a religious conversion and imposes increasingly rigid fundamentalist beliefs on his household. Conflict intensifies when Arthur’s girlfriend Maggie becomes pregnant, bringing the father and son into direct opposition over abortion, sexual morality, and individual conscience. Written during the expansion of the Christian Right in American politics, the novel gave Highsmith an explicitly contemporary setting for her recurring concern with the violence that can develop beneath conventional domestic life.

Highsmith, Patricia. People Who Knock at the Door. New York: The Mysterious Press, 1985. Uncorrected Page Proof. First American edition. Red printed wrappers, perfect-bound, with promotional text printed in black on rear wrapper; copyright page states “FIRST AMERICAN EDITION.” This advance state contains a dedication to “the Palestinian people and their leaders,” providing copy-specific evidence of Highsmith’s increasingly outspoken political commitments during the later decades of her career. The narrative centers on the Alderman family after Richard interprets the recovery of his younger son Robbie from severe illness as divine intervention. His conversion brings anti-abortion belief, hostility toward evolution, and an increasingly authoritarian conception of Christian morality into the family home, while Arthur resists his father’s attempt to control his relationship with Maggie and the decisions surrounding her pregnancy.

Highsmith published the novel during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when evangelical organizations had become increasingly active in national debates over abortion, education, sexuality, and family values. Rather than treating fundamentalism as an abstract theological question, she locates those conflicts within parental authority and the private consequences of religious certainty. The advance proof format records the novel immediately before its American trade publication and preserves the Palestinian dedication present in this copy. Near fine in original wrappers with Mylar cover. An advance state of Highsmith’s late political fiction documenting her treatment of American Christian fundamentalism, reproductive choice, and coercive family authority during the 1980s.

Item #22445

Price: $225.00