Book Review: The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
- Al Preston
- Apr 15
- 11 min read
By Al Preston
I first read The Price of Salt just about 8 years ago now. It was the first historic LGBT+ fiction book I had ever read. The Price of Salt/Carol by Patricia Highsmith is a prolific lesbian romance novel, inspiring and comforting many queer folks since it was published in 1952. 40 years (give or take) after The Well of Loneliness and 74 years before 2026, The Price of Salt feels far more relatable and comparable to us today than to Radclyffe Hall back in the 1920s.
I also have to admit some things I’ve said about this book that are completely wrong. Turns out, my memory isn’t so great after 8 years to the point where I’m not sure I actually read it at all back then. I was in an English literature class reading about feminist and alternatively perspectives in literature. We read Grendel—the story of Beowulf but told from the point of view of the monster Grendel. The Red Tent—a retelling of a biblical story from the point of view of the women. We read a few others and then, finally, The Price of Salt.
Notably, this was also not long after the movie Carol came out…which I also don’t remember. We watched it. I remember vague talks about the characters, plot, and themes…but not much else. I think 2018 was the year I graduated and by then I was pretty burnt out by school in general, so I very easily could have never truly read it.
The things I thought I knew had to have come from generalized readings about literature of the past and lumped this book in with other queer novels of the time. Unlike those other novels, there isn’t a death or ‘return to normal’ for the main characters in The Price of Salt. In fact, it’s implied that they stayed together. A pretty bold move in 1952.
Where did I get these memories? What is the book actually like? What about the movie?
You’ll have to wait on that movie question, but here I want to dive into the history of the book, Highsmith, and the actual story. Break down the misconceptions that I even helped spread.
On the back of my copy, the same from way back then, there is a short blurb about this book’s history and a little about the author. According to this summary, The Price of Salt was—basically—the only queer book of its time with a happy ending. Not only that, but both main characters defied popular lesbian stereotypes. It fell out of print but had a recent (in 2018) re-issuing mayhap related to the movie coming out. Although it’s hard to say.
As for Highsmith, she was already a pretty popular author well known for psychological thrillers. Some of which were adapted into films. One of which, Strangers on a Train by Alfred Hitchcock. She wrote The Price of Salt under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, and I suspect that her previous fame is what allowed her to get the book published without killing anyone off.
Highsmith was known to be an out and proud lesbian, constantly chasing women. She also didn’t want to be known only as a writer who made that lesbian book which was why she used a pseudonym. According to Highsmith and her friends, she wrote The Price of Salt inspired by an older woman she saw and stalked for a short time.
There are many different copies and editions of The Price of Salt which come from the different publishing times. Some label the book as written by Highsmith’s pseudonym while others named Highsmith the author. The movie was done by one of Highsmith’s old friends who had been planning on bringing the book to the screen for a long time.
In comparison to other books from the time, where the lesbians die at the end, or have their lesbian fling and become ‘normal’ at the end, this book gives people a more real vision of what it was like to be a lesbian in the 50s. In general, lesbians most often fall into many negative stereotypes in order to sell the books.
There were always age gaps, butch/femme dynamics—which would mimic a typical straight relationship—predatory lesbians, lots of racism, and BDSM themes. There were love triangles and straight men attempting to reform lesbians. Incest and rape were also common themes alongside alcoholism, addictions, and kinks.
Lesbians weren’t meant to be good people; they weren’t meant to be normal people either. They had weird desires or hobbies. There was something wrong with them in which their attraction to the same sex was a symptom of or because of their strangeness. Sympathetic stories were rare, let alone stories with happy endings.
The Price of Salt only has one of these stereotypes, the age difference, but it’s not treated the same way as these crueler depictions. It’s not played up too much, instead it’s implied that Therese becomes closer in age to Carol by the end of the story. Additionally, neither of them are predatory, there’s no break of consent, no love triangle, just love options. Next to no racism other than time typical uses of particular words. Both Carol and Therese are very feminine women rather than one of them being masculine and there’s no dominance and submission themes.
You can see hints of these things still, but they don’t dominate the story. They appear and disappear just as quickly give or take a theme or two.
So, what actually happens in this book? Well, more than I thought for how thin it is! It’s also much more interesting than I remember (what little I apparently remember). I’ll put the warning for spoilers here as well. I will be going over the entire plot of the book. If you wish to not be spoiled for the book or movie, you can stop here!
The story begins with the main character Therese at her temporary seasonal job at a department store. By trade, Therese is a stage designer for stage performances, but the job market is rough (relatable), so she had to take a temporary position to stay afloat. Her friend, Richard—who I will herby refer to as Richard: The Nice Guy—got her a meeting with two guys who have a stage production in the works and needed a set designer. In the meantime, Therese keeps working at the doll story at the department store.
Richard: The Nice Guy has been Therese’s friend for some time he’s also been in love with her just as long with the clear intent to marry her. Therese doesn’t like him that way, but Richard: The Nice Guy is sure he’ll wear her down one day. Hence his subtitle. His mother even makes Therese what amounts to a wedding dress at one point.
Anyway, after work, Richard: The Nice Guy joins her at her apartment to prepare for Dannie and Phil the guys with the show. Therese and Richard: The Nice Guy banter a little and I don’t remember the characters being funny or the dialogue being one of the most engaging and interesting parts of the book. Just from dialogue alone it’s clear how well Richard: The Nice Guy and Therese know each other. It’s also made very clear that Therese just sees him as her directionless friend.
That meeting goes well and Therese strikes a friendship with both men. When she goes back to work, she talks with an older coworker and goes to her home for dinner. This woman is described as ugly and disabled. She has been working for the department store for 15 years. Before that, she tells Therese, she used to be a popular seamstress. The woman ends up falling asleep and Therese flees the house, terrified to become this poor woman.
Therese is young—I think 18 or 19—when the book begins. Her terror at becoming someone who does nothing but work for a department store is a very relatable fear. When I used to work at a grocery store, I feared much the same. It’s a little upsetting for this poor woman to be described the way she is, but that’s to really highlight the idea and what Therese is feeling.
Therese reassures herself that she has a job doing what she wants and goes in for her next shift at the store. It’s Christmas and many people are getting toys for their kids. Within the crowd, Therese meets eyes with a very beautiful older woman. In a relatively normal conversation about the woman buying a doll and having it sent out of state, Therese has a pretty big gay panic about this beautiful woman.
Between the packing slip and the dealings of the business, Therese learns that this woman is named Carol and quickly memorizes her address. Even after Carol leaves Therese thinks about her the rest of the day then impulsively buys and sends Carol a Christmas card.
Therese starts work on the sets for the stage play and while at the store, she gets a call from Carol about the card. This begins a sexually charged and weirdly motherly relationship between the two.
Carol is going through a divorce with her husband Harge who is fighting for complete custody of their child, Rindy. She’s overly motherly towards Therese at first who was abandoned at an orphanage as a child by her mother. They sort of dance around their feelings and Therese is told frequently by most of the people around her that she’s too young to know anything. Carol goes through bouts of anger or grumpiness because her soon-to-be ex-husband kind of sucks. Most of the time, they both drop what they’re doing to see each other.
Carol’s friend Abby, who had a brief fling with Carol, appears now and again. At one point, she takes Therese to lunch, and they talk around Therese’s attraction to Carol and this is a point in the story where it feels like Therese is an unreliable narrator. The whole conversation with Abby, Therese thinks and believes that Abby is jealous. However, Abby’s actions and behavior as they talk suggest the opposite. To me she read more like she’s worried and concerned for them both and very genuinely trying to help. Alas, we are struck in only Therese’s point of view in this book unlike in The Well of Loneliness where we were head hopping all of the time. Instead, this leads to us having to either believe what Therese believes about people or really study what actions are described.
There are a few times where Therese believes someone is upset or angry when they are described as mildly annoyed at worst or mostly uncaring at the best. I think it’s to add to her naiveté.
Regardless, When Carol asks Therese to join her on a cross-country trip, she agrees. Richard: The Nice Guy is very upset about it as Therese constantly leaves him in the dust to be with Carol and he decides part way through the trip that she’s sick for preferring Carol over him. By that point, Therese is done with his nonsense and is happy to basically dust her hands of him. Dannie also keeps up with her. Just before the trip, he forces a kiss on her which she doesn’t seem to be bothered by. Which vaguely leads to him being a third romance option, but not really.
Her prospectives for more work have also dried up, so she’s relieved to be going away and especially with Carol.
On this trip, they both admit their feelings for each other and have sex. It’s a fade to black except for one description that is entirely about how having sex with Carol makes Therese feel. Previously, she described what sex with Richard: The Nice Guy was like and there’s a stark difference between these experiences. It’s a metaphor about her overwhelming feelings that build and climax rather than a description of actual climax of physical actions.
Here’s a small excerpt to show what I mean;
“While a thousand memories and moments, words, the first darling, the second time Carol had met her at the store, a thousand memories of Carol’s face, her voice, moments of anger and laughter flashed like the tail of a comet across her brain. And now it was pale-blue distance and space an expanding space in which she took flight suddenly like a long arrow. The arrow seemed to cross an impossibly wide abyss with ease, seemed to arc on and on in space, and not quite to stop….Therese lay still, looking at her at Carol’s face only inches away from her, the gray eyes calm as she had never seen them, as if they retained some of the space she had just emerged from.” Pg 104
More importantly (to me), Highsmith’s skills as a thriller writer kick in. Briefly, Therese remembers she left a love letter to Carol in a book at Carol’s home before they left but assumed it would be fine. Then, the morning after they confess their feelings, Therese notices a man in the lobby of the hotel. A few stops later, they have to go from hotel to hotel to gather up all of these telegrams that were sent to Carol by Harge and Abby.
They’re being followed by a private eye hired by Harge. Carol becomes paranoid and does everything she can to keep the PI from wire tapping their room or trying to lose him. Unfortunately, he keeps up with them and sent recordings—maybe explicit—back to Harge. Carol chooses to fly back, leaving Therese to rejoin later. Sadly, the situation is more complicated than Carol would have liked.
Carol’s maid found Therese’s letter and sold it to Harge. He then hired the PI to get proof that they were lesbians in order to end any claim Carol could have to see Rindy.
Therese and Carol send letters and the last letter from Carol makes it sound like Carol is choosing to see her daughter over being with Therese. Which leads to a bit of a selfish moment from Therese as she goes into a depressive spiral. While, yes, Therese has been abandoned by her other mother figure and loved Carol so much and it would hurt to have your lover choose to not see you again…this is Carol’s daughter who Carol has been mostly depicted to care a lot about before this point. Yes, it’s awful that their relationship is causing all of these problems, but that was the reality of the 1950s.
Heartbroken, Therese drives back and transforms seemingly into an adult because of her experience. She gets ahold of a job through networking and gets a more adult wardrobe.
She briefly meets up with Carol to give her back her car. Carol admits that she let Harge win and intends to move to an apartment. She invites Therese to live with her, in the end actually choosing Therese over her daughter. Therese rejects the offer, however. Carol is surprised but sadly accepts that choice and they part ways.
As Therese goes to a party for the job she had acquired, she meets the famous actress playing the lead. The actress takes a gay interest in Therese and Therese really thinks about this. She thinks about Richard: The Nice Guy and Dannie, the ‘reasonable’ choice, then finally about Carol. Instead of joining the actress in the after party, Therese hurries to leave and finds Carol. The story ends with their eyes meeting and smiling at each other, hinting that they stary together once the story ends.
All in all…I still find this story a bit boring. The best parts are when there’s dialogue which isn’t very often. There are also some errors like misspelled words or paragraph breaks where there shouldn’t be.
The writing is pretty, bits of Therese diving into her feelings are really good metaphors. Otherwise, minus the plot with the PI, it’s a story about normal people which—in and of itself—was a rarity at the time.
It’s not fully my cup of tea, but it really did keep my interest. I think I can see why I might not really remember it. Most of the book is forgettable because it is just people living. For us today (2026), that’s a bit dull but for lesbians of the 1950s that was completely unheard of.
As this book does take place in the 1950s, there’s a few slurs used here and there and copious amounts of smoking. So much smoking.
I would highly suggest reading this book, regardless of my complaints. It’s a good read and is a peak into a world much like but also so different from our own.
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