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By the mid-twentieth century, cheap pulp fiction novels had developed a massive readership and there was a genre for everyone. Crime and police procedurals, stories focused on war, science fiction, and westerns were in high demand among the reading public, as were romances. Lesbian pulp fiction emerged from this atmosphere as a covert means of expression for stories that were otherwise expected to stay hidden. These novels, often written by queer women, were presented in such a way that they could be marketed to men as sexually suggestive stories where women experiment with lesbianism only to meet with tragedy and/or find their way back to a safely heterosexual lifestyle in the arms of a heroic male partner. But it was through pulp fiction that many queer women first found out about the existence of others like themselves.
If lesbian pulp fiction was the Trojan horse providing cover for these women to read about themselves through stories ostensibly meant for men, then Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt (1952) was the Trojan horse inside the Trojan horse providing a disguise for a genuine love story between two women. The cover of the 1953 paperback edition mimics the style of lesbian pulp novels, with a garish depiction of a smoking woman hovering lasciviously over another woman who is seated on a couch, placing her hand on the woman's shoulder, while a man lurches like a jilted zombie in the background.
But unlike so much lesbian pulp fiction, The Price of Salt, which Highsmith wanted to be published under the title Carol, does not end with tragedy or a retreat to heterosexuality. It is widely regarded as the first novel about queer women to feature a "happy" ending. Its author, who had just made a name for herself with the novel Strangers on a Train, published the book under a pseudonym partly to protect her reputation; it was not until 1990 that Highsmith finally agreed to put her name on the cover (see Beyond the Book).
Which is not to say the story is without tragedy. It centers around a 19-year-old woman named Therese Belivet who is working at a New York City department store to make extra money over the holidays. She falls spontaneously and devastatingly in love with an older woman, Carol Aird, who stops in the store to purchase a doll for her daughter. Therese seems to be experiencing same-sex attraction for the first time, but there is surprisingly little fanfare around the question of sexuality (screenwriter for the film adaptation Phyllis Nagy has also commented on this aspect, declaring the premise of the novel to be "two central figures not giving a rat's ass about sexual identity"). While Therese does see the situation as peculiar, she seems to take it for granted that this sort of thing could happen to anyone. She asks her tepid boyfriend, Richard, if he has ever fallen in love with a boy, or known anyone who experienced something like this. He responds that he of course knows of "people like that" but she insists, "I don't mean people like that. I mean two people who fall in love suddenly with each other, out of the blue. Say two men or two girls." This is followed by an awkward exchange over a beautiful hand-painted kite Richard is flying, during which he cuts the strings and lets the wind take it away despite Therese's tearful protestations. Richard lacks the respect for beauty, the passion for life that might draw him into an unpredictable love affair. Meanwhile, having grown up in a religious "home" after being abandoned by her mother, Therese lacks the stability that cements rigidity. She is wide open to the world.
We don't learn the extent of Carol's history but she has been with at least one woman before, her friend Abby, whom Therese regards with jealousy but also the same level of intense fascination she brings to everything in Carol's life. Carol is in the process of divorcing her husband, Harge, and fighting him for custody of their daughter, who is inexplicably named Rindy. To get away from the stress of this situation, Carol and Therese go on a cross-country trip, throughout which they are unknowingly, and then knowingly tailed by a private detective hired by Harge in an attempt to prove Carol is an unfit (read: deviant) mother. After the subterfuge has been unveiled, Carol races home to New York, leaving Therese behind to follow later, when things have calmed down. Carol's sudden absence is devastating to Therese, and the uncertainty about the future of their relationship provides the tension for the novel's final act.
The restrained amount of discussion about sexuality is especially noteworthy given that The Price of Salt is a coming-of-age story. Therese evaluates other women she meets, including Carol, from the perspective of whether or not she might want to be like them. She quits her job at the department store shortly after spending an evening with a woman who has worked there for many years, finding her home, her habits, her body hobbled by a lifetime of manual labor so grotesque it incites a panic attack. Later, this theme is handled more delicately, and with the intelligent sensitivity that is the novel's most remarkable quality. Still never quite bluntly asking herself how she ought to label her sexuality, Therese explores romantic feelings for a male friend, considers a woman she meets at a party as a potential lover, and makes a clear-eyed choice about who she wants to be, and with whom.
But The Price of Salt's lasting legacy can be attributed to its ending, which, without spoiling too much, stamps it firmly as a love story rather than a cynical, pulpy tale designed to titillate but ultimately punish the transgressors of heteronormativity. It was one of the first of its kind in modern literature, defying the conventions that said that lesbian love stories had to end with death, despair, or destitution, and it found a massive readership (exact figures vary, but many sources claim the paperback edition of The Price of Salt published in 1953 sold close to a million copies).
If you've seen the movie adaptation, Carol (2015), directed by Todd Haynes and starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, but haven't read the book, you've only experienced a fraction of the charm and romantic effervescence of this exquisite story.
This review
first ran in the January 29, 2025
issue of BookBrowse Recommends.
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