The Terrapin

The Terrapin is a short story by Patricia Highsmith. Based on the difficult relationship she had with her own mother, the story revolves around a young boy, Victor, whose emotionally abused by his difficult, haughty mother, an illustrator of children's books.

The Terrapin of the title, a small tortoise purchased by his mother for cooking, suffers an agonising death when she drops it into the boiling pan. This event pushes young Victor over the edge - he believes he heard it scream - and during the night he butchers his mother with a kitchen knife for revenge. The story ends while he's being examined by doctors in a psychiatric hospital.