rodent roundup - june 2026

I spent most of June wrapping up Against the Day, so I decided to do a run of short books for a while. I picked up The Talented Mr. Ripley, one of Hannah’s favorites since we picked up an ancient trade paperback from a used bookstore last summer. I think it’s the correct format to read the book in, this cheap and sort of trashy little container. I’m not sure at what point historically the book became a generally accepted classic (it was on that awful Guardian list of the 100 best books of all time) but it means that the only editions today are punishingly classy. This is a sleazy crime story! The inside should match the outside.

I found The Talented Mr. Ripley an interesting pair with The Universal Baseball Association, which I wrote about a few days ago. Like J. Henry Waugh, Tom Ripley has a captivating ability to shift from catastrophizing self-loathing to snide judgement of anyone he encounters. Either side of him would come across irritatingly cloying without the other to temper it. It’s a remarkable balancing act, and a convincing one. Ripley feels realer than almost any literary character I’ve read. Perhaps that’s because the flagellant narcissist is such a common personality type nowadays. There are so many hilarious sections where Patricia Highsmith’s narration of someone else’s actions will just drift away as Ripley gets bored with them. Very American Psycho.