Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith

A fictional and complex portrait of bestselling author Patricia Highsmith caught up in the longing that would inspire her queer classic, The Price of Salt Flung Out of Space is both a love letter to the essential lesbian novel, The Price of Salt, and an examination of its notorious author, Patricia Highsmith. Flung Out of Space opens with Pat begrudgingly writing low-brow comics. Veteran comics creators Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer have teamed up to tell this story through Highsmith's eyes-reimagining the events that inspired her to write the story that would become a foundational piece of queer literature.

Her brain churns with images of the great novel she could and should be writing-what will eventually be Strangers on a Train- which would later be adapted into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. A drinker, a smoker, and a hater of life, Pat knows she can do better. At the same time, Pat, a lesbian consumed with self-loathing, is in and out of conversion therapy, leaving a trail of sexual conquests and broken hearts in her wake.

However, one of those very affairs and a chance encounter in a department store give Pat the idea for her soon-to-be beloved tale of homosexual love that was the first of its kind-it gave the lesbian protagonists a happy ending. This is not just the story behind a classic queer book, but of a queer artist who was deeply flawed. It's a comic about what it was like to write comics in the 1950s, but also about what it means to be a writer at any time in history, struggling to find your voice.

Author Grace Ellis contextualizes Patricia Highsmith as both an unintentional queer icon and a figure whose problematic views and noted anti-Semitism have cemented her controversial legacy. Highsmith's life imitated her art with results as devastating as the plot twists that brought her fame and fortune.