Product Description

Now recognized as a masterwork, the scandalous novel that anticipated Nabokov's Lolita.

"I have long had a theory that Nabokov knew The Price of Salt and modeled the climactic cross-country car chase in Lolita on Therese and Carol's frenzied bid for freedom," writes Terry Castle in The New Republic about this novel, arguably Patricia Highsmith's finest, first published in 1952 under the pseudonym Clare Morgan. Soon to be a new film, The Price of Salt tells the riveting story of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose salvation arrives one day in the form of Carol Aird, an alluring suburban housewife in the throes of a divorce. They fall in love and set out across the United States, pursued by a private investigator who eventually blackmails Carol into a choice between her daughter and her lover. With this reissue, The Price of Salt may finally be recognized as a major twentieth-century American novel.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #534478 in Books
• Published on: 1991-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 276 pages

Review
A document of persecuted love...perfect. (The Independent )

A document of persecuted love...perfect. -- The Independent

About the Author
Patricia Highsmith is the author of such classics as Strangers on a Train and Nothing That Meets the Eye. She died in 1995 in Locarno, Switzerland.

Customer Reviews

A Happy Ending... For a Change.
I was introduced to Therese and Carol, the two protaganists in Highsmith's lesbian romance The Price of Salt, my Sophomore year of college in a Gay and Lesbian Lit. Class. The professor told the class she had picked the book becuase it was well written and it presented an interesting twist to a gay love story, no one dies or goes straight at the end(imagine that). This alone is not neccesarily compelling enough to get someone to read Salt, after all, today's gay and lesbian love stories often end in positive and fulfilled ways. But for Highsmith's Salt, written in the 1950s, this was a stretch. The reader will enjoy the subtleness of the prose and the indepth look at the confusion and chaos that can occur when two women come together and realize their mutual attraction and then love for each other. In addition, the novel is a dynamic look at 1950s America as the characters adventure out of New York and off into the Great American Wide Open. I encourage gay and straight readers to venture forth with Therese and Carol. Salt allows a beautiful look into the world of finding one's soul mate and falling in love. Becuase, above all, Highsmith has written a love story, not just a lesbian work of fiction.

Forty Years Later
I discovered this book, and my own sexuality, in the late "50's." Through the years it has been the one title and story that I have always remembered. Now, I've a new copy and reading it again has brought back all the memories of the first time I read it. A beautiful story with a beautiful ending... I only wish Highsmith had writen a sequel with Carol and Therese.

One of this writers best efforts.
In 1952 Patricia Highsmith composed this personal and revelatory classic. Harper & Bros, publisher of Highsmith's "Strangers on a Train," refused to issue this novel due to its controversial subject matter. The powers that be convinced Highmsith that publishing under her own name would adversely impact her career the way Gore Vidal's had initially been by "The City and the Pillar." The Naiad Press out of Tallahassee, Florida published this volume under the pseudonym Claire Morgan. Ironically, "The Price of Salt" became one of this author's best sellers. All that seems so long ago - another lifetime. Indeed, it's hard to conceive of Michael Cunningham or Tony Kushner having to contend with such issues. So, now that all of the controversy has abated we can judge this novel on it's own merits, and the verdict is a happy one. "The Price of Salt" is one of Highsmith's best efforts. This novel works on a number of levels. It is both a "coming out" story and a "love" story, with a bit of the author's trademark suspense thrown in for good measure. The story has an emotional honesty and autobigraphical sensibility; qaulities that are noticeably absent from much of her other work. I found myself pulling for Carol and Therese, and found the development of their relationship to be natural and true to life. The "happy ending" is achieved in an uncompromising fashion that doesn't feel false or contrived. I am reminded of a Stephen Sondheim lyric: "wishes come true, not free." These characters paid a price for their happiness - it wasn't free.