“Flung Out of Space” is a rewarding, often prickly graphic novel recounting the creative launch of author Patricia Highsmith.

Set in 1940s New York City, the book captures the author as a struggling artist. Her day job entails writing hack comic books she doesn’t respect; in her off hours, she chips away at a novel that eventually becomes “Strangers on a Train,” famously adapted by Alfred Hitchcock.

Highsmith’s life on the margins is complicated by the fact that’s a lesbian, barely closeted in a homophobic world. The hostility is made clear right in the opening pages, when a bartender tosses Highsmith out after a brief flirtation with another woman.

In writer Grace Ellis’ telling, Highsmith is openly difficult: she’s sneering, short-tempered, anti-Semitic (as shown during a brief encounter with Stan Lee, before his Marvel bullpen days). But how much of that stems from self-loathing fueled by a unaccepting society?

The young author spends her days double-dipping, freelancing at her day job to earn extra income to pay for psychiatric sessions to “make her straight.” Ironically, group therapy ends up introducing her to a new cohort of lesbian lovers, but any happiness the author finds is quickly squelched. A promising relationship dies when the woman’s ex uses video of his wife with another woman to blackmail her into returning home, back to a life of closeted misery.

Highsmith never submits. She remains rebellious, blowing back convention and eventually writing a seminal lesbian novel, “The Price of Salt,” a book that features one of the earliest examples of a happy ending for a gay couple. It’s hard to sell, but it eventually does, despite Highsmith’s best efforts at self-sabotage. (As her agent, whose girlfriend Highsmith slept with, says, “Happy New Year, Pat. Maybe one of your resolutions can be to stop making your own life hell.”)

“Flung Out of Space” is smart and heartfelt. It introduced me to a new perspective on Highsmith, her accomplishments and her limitations. Ellis’ writing is crisp and snappy, a strong match for Highsmith’s own prose.

The art by Hannah Templer is excellent as well. She does a good job capturing the glamour of Highsmith’s affairs as well as the mundanity of post-war living, whether it’s the author’s pool at a budget comics publisher or the temp job Highsmith picks up at Bloomingdale’s to make a little extra cash to fix her own typewriter.