The Price of Salt [Paperback]

Claire Morgan (Author), Pat Tong (Contributor), Bonnie Liss (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1991

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.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A document of persecuted love...perfect. (The Independent ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Naiad Press; Revised edition (March 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1562800035
• ISBN-13: 978-1562800031
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,354,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

110 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Happy Ending... For a Change., November 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Price of Salt (Paperback)

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.

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forty Years Later, December 17, 1999

By 

A. Kosec - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Price of Salt (Paperback)

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.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coming Out in 1969, March 24, 2005

By 

Rachel Wetherill "ditsyquoin" (Round Hill, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Price of Salt (Paperback)

The Price of Salt changed my life. I used to drive an ice cream truck in Long Beach CA and would stop by the pier at a used book store to search the racks of pulp fiction for anything that had a modicum of same sex content.

21 years old, knowing that I wanted to meet others of my kind, and the only literature I knew was Well of Lonliness, prison studies and pulp that either had the butch lesbian dying tragically or reformming into a femme.

Among the bunch of poorly writen pulp I bought, was a gem written by Claire Morgan. No one dies and they end with the possibility of a long term relationship. It was the first sense of hope that I had as a young lesbian in the sixties. It saved my life.

To anyone who is interested in GLB studies, this is a must read as it is a the first historical book with a positive ending.