PATRICIA HIGHSMITH HAD A MOLLUSK COLLECTION

iconic lesbian author, PATRICIA HIGHSMITH, (strangers on a train, the talented mr. ripley, carol- aka the price of salt)  bred about three hundred snails in her garden at home in Suffolk, England.  Highsmith once attended a London cocktail party with a "gigantic handbag" that "contained a head of lettuce and a hundred snails" which she said were her "companions for the evening"