Strangers On A Train

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1950

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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 opens on the train from New York to Metcalf. Guy contemplates his divorce from Miriam as he gazes out the window. He wonders why she has sent for him, and the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy with another man's child. Guy is optimistic about his future career prospects as an architect, and life with Anne. Still, he feels manipulated by Miriam, who may tarnish his reputation in Metcalf, where his mother lives. Another man sits down opposite Guy, while Guy reads a book by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. The other man, whose name is Charles Anthony Bruno, offers Guy a drink and the two exchange pleasantries. As the train pauses, Guy resumes thinking about extricating himself from Miriam in order to be with Anne. Back on board, Bruno interrupts Guy's private thoughts and insists drunkenly that the pair have dinner together in his private room. Though initially resistant, Guy acquiesces.

Bruno's room is untidy and cluttered decadently with entertainments, for which Bruno apologizes. The pair stand awkwardly before being served dinner, during which they continue conversing and drinking. Each elucidates his life, Bruno sharing his hatred for his father and close relationship with his mother. Bruno describes a privileged lifestyle, hampered only by the fact that he is separated from his family's fortune by his father. Bruno reveals that his drinking and gambling habits led him to drop out of Harvard. He contrasts his frivolity with Guy's professionalism. Bruno interrupts Guy's musings to himself about joining Anne in Mexico, continuing to bemoan his fate. He again expresses animosity towards his father and asks Guy if he’s ever wanted to commit murder. Guy says no.

As Guy leafs through a pile of detective novels, Bruno expounds upon "a theory that a person ought to do everything it’s possible to do before he dies, and maybe die trying to do something that's really impossible" (21).He confesses to driving at high speed blindfolded and committing robbery. Guy reflects privately on "the desperate boredom of the wealthy […] it tended to destroy rather than create. And it could lead to crime as easily as privation" (21). Bruno asks Guy about himself. Bruno accurately infers Guy’s situation. Lubricated by the alcohol, Guy admits that Miriam was unfaithful. Guy is tempted to tell Bruno his story, but refrains. Bruno compensates for Guy's reserve by castigating women who have behaved like Miriam.

Chapter 2 Summary

Bruno commiserates with Guy by identifying his father's adultery with Miriam's. Guy struggles with feelings of futility brought on by the memory, before Bruno announces he has a multitude of ideas for the perfect murder. Bruno attempts to draw Guy out into identifying with his own destructive desires, but Guy resists, announcing "I'm not that kind of person" (29).Bruno contradicts him, asserting "any kind of person can murder" (29). As Bruno opens another scotch bottle with a penknife, Guy imagines him committing a murder with the same inconsequentiality. Bruno invites Guy to stay with him, but Guy declines, telling Bruno that instead he must attend to the business of designing the prestigious Palmyra Country Club. Bruno regards Guy "like a hero-worshipping little boy", and Guy reflects that it is "the biggest commission of his life" (32). Guy bats away Bruno's attempts to discern whether he has any murderous impulses toward Miriam. Bruno talks flippantly about plans to kill his father or commit suicide. He excitedly seizes on the idea of exchanging murders, which he believes would provide the perfect alibi for each of them. Guy feels uncomfortable and leaves the carriage to get some air. As they clamber back aboard, Guy refuses Bruno's offer for a nightcap, leaving his book on Plato in Bruno's room.

Chapter 3 Summary

Guy meets Miriam at the high school equidistant from their old houses. She is late, and Guy remembers their school days. Catching sight of her, Guy's "heart [begins] to beat faster" (37). Miriam does not look pregnant, as she had said she was, but tells Guy that the baby is due in January. Owen, the father of Miriam's baby, is married, Miriam tells Guy. She wants to delay their divorce and asks Guy if she can stay with him for a few months. Out of pity, Guy says that he will give up his Palmyra job if she comes with him, and reflects on his fascination with self-sabotage. He resolves to spend the last of his money on a trip to Mexico to stay with Anne for a few days.

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

In Chapter 2, Bruno introduces the theme of duplicity that structures both the novel and his own psychic world. He claims that there are two kinds of men, that and all women are "two-timers" (28). Guy is also fascinated by the idea of duplicity: "For an instant, Guy saw both halves of his life, his marriage and his career, side by side as he felt he had never seen them before" (32). It is this notion of duplicity, manifested through the relationship between the two strangers, that gives the novel its narrative momentum.

When Bruno apologizes for the mess in his room, we are introduced to a Highsmithian tendency to litter her narratives with dark jokes. "My mother makes me take all this stuff, hoping it'll keep me out of bars" (15), Bruno says, clarifying afterward that he means drinking houses, rather than prison. At once sinister and wisecracking, Highsmith's puns are a formal expression of the duplicity that structures the novel at a macro level.