Here we go with my last entry this year for the 1952 Club!
If you’re accustomed to Patricia Highsmith’s suspense novels, like the Ripley novels or Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt may be a big change of pace. The W. W. Norton and Company edition I read tries to slant it more in that direction by using phrases like “sexual obsession” and “stalking” on the cover, but it’s not like that.
Therese Belivet is unhappy in her life. She is a set designer who can’t find a job, so she has taken a temporary Christmas-season job with a large department store. She hates that job. She dates a man who wants to marry her—Richard—but she doesn’t want to marry him, even though she likes him.
Then one day at work she sees a beautiful blonde woman about 10 or 15 years older than herself. She is immediately struck by her. After she sells her a doll, she puts a little thank you note into the package to be delivered, not signing it but using her employee number. To her surprise, the woman, Carol Aird, calls her at the store.
They begin a hesitant friendship, with Carol often picking her up to spend the night at her house. She lives alone because she is divorcing her husband, who is trying to get custody of their daughter. Therese, who is madly in love with Carol, can’t figure out how Carol feels, as she is cold at times.
Professionally, things are looking up a little for Therese. She gets a short-term job doing sets for an off-Broadway play and has the attention of a major director. Things are getting rocky with Richard, though, and she can’t figure out the situation with Carol. Then Carol invites her to accompany her on a cross-country driving trip.
If this book wasn’t written in 1952 or was about a man and woman, it would more or less be a standard romance with the entanglement of a 50s divorce. However, because of when it was published, it was a daring novel, especially for the United States. (I have read other similar books from English writers, published earlier.) Like many of Highsmith’s books, I wasn’t drawn to any of her characters, but I have never thought Highsmith cared about that kind of thing, in fact, may have preferred protagonists that readers don’t like.
I don’t know what I feel about it. I guess I admire Highsmith’s courage in writing it but otherwise felt sort of meh about it.
What? Me Read? 
Is this the one that was made into a film called Carol? I much prefer the title The Price of Salt, even if I don’t quite get its relevance. Does the book explain it?
Yes, it’s the same as Carol. They explain it, it’s part of a quote, maybe from the Bible. I don’t remember the context now.
I quite enjoyed this one, but she definitely has some much stronger novels,
Yes.
I saw the movie, then read the book, a number of years ago. I seem to recall feeling that the book and movie were quite different – the movie more about Carol and the book more about Therese.
I haven’t seen the movie. That’s interesting.
I never warmed up to the Ripley novels, but I saw the movie Carol and quite liked it and have been meaning to try this but haven’t.
Ripley was a sociopath, but somehow I always was sucked into hoping he would get out of whatever mess he was in.