What do you think?
Rate this book
Carol
Patricia Highsmith's story of romantic obsession may be one of the most important, but still largely unrecognized, novels of the twentieth century. First published in 1952 and touted as "the novel of a love that society forbids," the book soon became a cult classic.
Based on a true story plucked from Highsmith's own life, Carol tells the riveting drama of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose routine is forever shattered by a gorgeous epiphany—the appearance of Carol Aird, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy. Therese begins to gravitate toward the alluring suburban housewife, who is trapped in a marriage as stultifying as Therese's job. They fall in love and set out across the United States, ensnared by society's confines and the imminent disapproval of others, yet propelled by their infatuation. Carol is a brilliantly written story that may surprise Highsmith fans and will delight those discovering her work.
This authorized edition includes an afterword by Patricia Highsmith. Previously titled The Price of Salt.
296 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1952
5324 people are currently reading
131192 people want to read
About the author
Claire Morgan
1 book86 followersPseudonym used by Patricia Highsmith for The Price of Salt, also published under the title Carol.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 8,974 reviews
February 17, 2022
yearning.com
Would love to read the same book from Carol's perspective, I have more sympathy for her than Therese.
Would love to read the same book from Carol's perspective, I have more sympathy for her than Therese.
January 9, 2015
Ok. I have Feelings about this book. And there might be some spoilery things, but no more than I was spoiled before reading it, so...it's probably not too bad.
I spent a large part of this being depressed because Carol's a total dick to Therese most of the time. HOWEVER. Omg the ending. Basically the last 20 or so pages. Awesome. And who doesn't love a road trip book? Because this is two ladies in love WHO ROAD TRIP IT. In the '50s. In America. Like Lolita, but less child-rapey. (I would like this to be the blurb on the book, please)
Highsmith has an afterword in the edition I read, that she wrote in '89, saying (among other things, of course): "Prior to this book, homosexuals male and female in American novels had had to pay for their deviation by cutting their wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to heterosexuality (so it was stated), or by collapsing—alone and miserable and shunned—into a depression equal to hell."
So THANK YOU, HIGHSMITH, for starting the trend of fixing that. And in the totally repressive year of 1953! So awesome.
I spent a large part of this being depressed because Carol's a total dick to Therese most of the time. HOWEVER. Omg the ending. Basically the last 20 or so pages. Awesome. And who doesn't love a road trip book? Because this is two ladies in love WHO ROAD TRIP IT. In the '50s. In America. Like Lolita, but less child-rapey. (I would like this to be the blurb on the book, please)
Highsmith has an afterword in the edition I read, that she wrote in '89, saying (among other things, of course): "Prior to this book, homosexuals male and female in American novels had had to pay for their deviation by cutting their wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to heterosexuality (so it was stated), or by collapsing—alone and miserable and shunned—into a depression equal to hell."
So THANK YOU, HIGHSMITH, for starting the trend of fixing that. And in the totally repressive year of 1953! So awesome.
October 19, 2015
I should be asleep by now... I even turned off the lights! I just couldn't, though, I just couldn't stop thinking. The first word that comes to mind after reading this novel? Odd. This was my first Highsmith's book and she has quite a personal writing style. It's different... but you find yourself going with the strange flow of words. I can't believe this was written in the 50's. The ending is so... bittersweet! I am still rather lost in it... Their relationship? It just happens. I must confess that at first I couldn't quite understand why Therese felt so drawn to Carol. I mean, I understood why she was drawn to her in the first place, but why she kept coming back after the many strange meetings with Carol? Now that I didn't quite understand. Not until I learned more about Therese, that is. Then it all seemed to fall into place. It was love. It was life. It was everything. Yes, I am completely aware of the fact that I sound like a hopeless romantic. But you know what? I don’t care.
There’s one thing I find extremely interesting about this book. Usually, when you are reading a novel about a romantic couple, you are driven to fall in love with both characters yourself, whether they are both female, male, or one of each. This novel is different, though. You are a witness to this relationship, not part of it. You forget they are two women, you forget how cold Carol seems to be and how Therese seems to be more obsessed with Carol than anything else. And guess what? At the end of the book you just can’t help it. You find yourself smiling and you feel happy for them. You fall in love with them... together. Two human beings who found love. How brilliant is that?
There’s one thing I find extremely interesting about this book. Usually, when you are reading a novel about a romantic couple, you are driven to fall in love with both characters yourself, whether they are both female, male, or one of each. This novel is different, though. You are a witness to this relationship, not part of it. You forget they are two women, you forget how cold Carol seems to be and how Therese seems to be more obsessed with Carol than anything else. And guess what? At the end of the book you just can’t help it. You find yourself smiling and you feel happy for them. You fall in love with them... together. Two human beings who found love. How brilliant is that?
Want to read
February 9, 2022yeah yeah i know, i'm supposed to be on a book buying ban but it's a gay book, it would have been super homophobic not to buy it 😕
December 3, 2015
UPDATED, December 3, 2015: Just saw Carol, the Todd Haynes film adaptation starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Gorgeous looking, and very faithful to the book. The cinematographer captures the era beautifully, and Haynes plays a lot with windows and reflections in an effective way. Therese's profession has been changed from budding set designer to budding photographer, which works well for a visual medium. The two leads are terrific, and Mara particularly makes you understand this character who tends to be a passive watcher. I preferred Far From Heaven, but the tone was much different. This movie isn't a big blockbuster, of course, but rather a handsome arthouse flick.
Published in 1952 under the pen name Claire Morgan, this book by the author of the Ripley novels and Strangers On A Train chronicles the love between 19-year-old set designer Therese and the wealthier, older and more worldly suburban mom Carol.
The lesbian plot might feel slightly tame today, and Therese comes across as overly passive (Highsmith addresses this in the afterward). But the novel, Highsmith's second, is well-structured, sensitively written (at times it's almost claustrophobic in its details) and an intriguing portrait of 50s repression and conformity.
Furthermore, the book's said to have influenced Nabokov's own tale about forbidden love, Lolita, and the Oscar-winning women-on-the-run film Thelma & Louise.
For years The Price Of Salt was relegated to the suspense and thriller shelf. But now, rightly so, it's being recognized for its literary merit. A couple of scenes sizzle: in the women's first meeting, Therese, who's working part-time in a department store before Xmas, helps out Carol, who's looking for a doll, and the two obviously share a connection; and there's a terrifically catty scene later on between Therese and Carol's nosy (and possibly also lesbian) friend Abby.
Director Todd Haynes, who brought 50s-style hidden homosexuality so evocatively to the screen in Far From Heaven, is directing a forthcoming adaptation of the book (called Carol), with Cate Blanchett (see production pic above) and Rooney Mara in the leads. Can't wait.
Published in 1952 under the pen name Claire Morgan, this book by the author of the Ripley novels and Strangers On A Train chronicles the love between 19-year-old set designer Therese and the wealthier, older and more worldly suburban mom Carol.
The lesbian plot might feel slightly tame today, and Therese comes across as overly passive (Highsmith addresses this in the afterward). But the novel, Highsmith's second, is well-structured, sensitively written (at times it's almost claustrophobic in its details) and an intriguing portrait of 50s repression and conformity.
Furthermore, the book's said to have influenced Nabokov's own tale about forbidden love, Lolita, and the Oscar-winning women-on-the-run film Thelma & Louise.
For years The Price Of Salt was relegated to the suspense and thriller shelf. But now, rightly so, it's being recognized for its literary merit. A couple of scenes sizzle: in the women's first meeting, Therese, who's working part-time in a department store before Xmas, helps out Carol, who's looking for a doll, and the two obviously share a connection; and there's a terrifically catty scene later on between Therese and Carol's nosy (and possibly also lesbian) friend Abby.
Director Todd Haynes, who brought 50s-style hidden homosexuality so evocatively to the screen in Far From Heaven, is directing a forthcoming adaptation of the book (called Carol), with Cate Blanchett (see production pic above) and Rooney Mara in the leads. Can't wait.
December 19, 2015
I've tried and tried and tried to understand why people like these two characters and their story so much. I've tried to come to it with an open mind and eyes ready to see whatever it is everyone else sees. But I just cannot seem to do it. I can't read Therese as anything but a petulant child with an obsessive fixation on someone she barely knows. I don't understand the swooning over Carol when, to me, she's written so nebulously that it's almost as if she isn't even present in the novel, let alone present in the relationship with Therese. I find both of them (in the book) wholly unlikeable.
This was distressingly hard to read. I remember being insulted when I heard people felt the on the road/camping portion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows dragged for them. Impossible, I thought! Well, now it's my turn. The road trip portion of this book was painfully slow to get through.
The movie is so much better than the book, in my opinion, though the characterization problems are still present. I think I could have understood so many people having such a positive reaction to it because it is so well made. But the number of people who have called it life changing, and swoon over it? Well, this movie has started to make me feel more and more disconnected from everyone around me. Now I not only don't understand it, I resent it.
This was distressingly hard to read. I remember being insulted when I heard people felt the on the road/camping portion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows dragged for them. Impossible, I thought! Well, now it's my turn. The road trip portion of this book was painfully slow to get through.
The movie is so much better than the book, in my opinion, though the characterization problems are still present. I think I could have understood so many people having such a positive reaction to it because it is so well made. But the number of people who have called it life changing, and swoon over it? Well, this movie has started to make me feel more and more disconnected from everyone around me. Now I not only don't understand it, I resent it.
December 2, 2025
IL PREZZO DEL SALE
Rooney Mara è Therese e Cate Blanchett è Carol.
Patricia Highsmith ha dimostrato il suo coraggio letterario sin dai primi passi, se si pensa che il suo debutto è Strangers on a Train, romanzo di rara ambiguità, e poi il secondo passo nel 1952, anche se sotto lo pseudonimo di Claire Morgan, è proprio questo, che uscì prima come The Price of Salt per poi diventare Carol nel 1990, il titolo che conosciamo oggi.
E tre anni dopo, 1955, aveva il coraggio di inventarsi un eroe come Tom Ripley, spregiudicato, probabilmente bisessuale, assassino!
Grazie anche al riuscito e raffinato film del 2015 diretto da Todd Haynes, la storia di Carol è nota.
Ed è soprattutto noto che si tratta di una storia di amore tra due donne. Fatta di attrazione, sin dal primo incontro, fatta di desiderio, di intensità, di passione.
E difficoltà: perché l’omosessualità nel 1952 neppure negli Stati Uniti veniva presa bene, era repressa, nascosta, vissuta in segreto e minaccia:
Erano tempi in cui i bar dei gay erano una porta buia in qualche recesso di Manhattan, e chi voleva andare in un certo bar scendeva dalla metropolitana una stazione prima o dopo quella voluta.
Therese – scenografa teatrale - accetta un lavoro temporaneo durante le feste di natale al reparto giocattoli di un department store.
Un giorno vede avvicinarsi colei che presto scoprirà chiamarsi Carol, pareva emanasse luce, Therese è rapita affascinata intrigata al primo sguardo.
Therese ha una relazione con una specie di fidanzato, Richard, più perché è quello che ci si aspetta da lei: ma passione e slancio tra i due sono soggetti non pervenuti.
Carol acquista una bambola per sua figlia – di otto anni – e lascia l’indirizzo dove possono fargliela avere. Therese a quell’indirizzo manda anche un biglietto di auguri che firma col suo nome - in verità, usa il numero di matricola assegnatole al grande magazzino. Carol rimane colpita da quel gesto coraggioso, telefona al negozio, parla con Therese, la invita per un drink.
Carol appartiene a classe sociale più elevata di Therese, lo si vede subito: ma questa differenza di censo non sembra giocare alcun ruolo nella storia d’amore che le due s’avviano ad avere.
Partono per un viaggio insieme, verso ovest, verso l’Utah. Non proprio Thelma e Louise, ma abbastanza vicino.
Solo che Carol nel frattempo stava divorziando, e il marito le piazza un investigatore privato alle costole, occhio privato che le segue e fotografa e registra (audio).
Quando apprende della relazione, non solo clandestina ma addirittura lesbica, il marito minaccia Carol di portarle via la figlia. E Carol sa che non scherza, e che può riuscirci: sa che essersi innamorata di Therese la mette in una posizione giuridicamente fragile e perdente.
Highsmith, senza indugiare, senza pruderie, racconta tutto, anche l’amore fisico tra le due donne, le sue due eroine.
E chissà, forse perché c’è molto di personale in questa storia (le storie d’amore più importanti della Highsmith sono quelle con donne, gli uomini furono in transito) – nata nella mente di Patricia nel 1948 quando era impiegata in un posto di lavoro con un incarico come quello di Therese – mi pare a memoria che sia l’unico suo romanzo che finisce con una bella nota di speranza e possibilità aperta (anche la saga di Ripley lascia sensazione di morte e pericolo alla fine di ciascuno dei quattro episodi).
Un inno alla libertà di scelta. Grance Patricia.
Rooney Mara è Therese e Cate Blanchett è Carol.
Patricia Highsmith ha dimostrato il suo coraggio letterario sin dai primi passi, se si pensa che il suo debutto è Strangers on a Train, romanzo di rara ambiguità, e poi il secondo passo nel 1952, anche se sotto lo pseudonimo di Claire Morgan, è proprio questo, che uscì prima come The Price of Salt per poi diventare Carol nel 1990, il titolo che conosciamo oggi.
E tre anni dopo, 1955, aveva il coraggio di inventarsi un eroe come Tom Ripley, spregiudicato, probabilmente bisessuale, assassino!
Grazie anche al riuscito e raffinato film del 2015 diretto da Todd Haynes, la storia di Carol è nota.
Ed è soprattutto noto che si tratta di una storia di amore tra due donne. Fatta di attrazione, sin dal primo incontro, fatta di desiderio, di intensità, di passione.
E difficoltà: perché l’omosessualità nel 1952 neppure negli Stati Uniti veniva presa bene, era repressa, nascosta, vissuta in segreto e minaccia:
Erano tempi in cui i bar dei gay erano una porta buia in qualche recesso di Manhattan, e chi voleva andare in un certo bar scendeva dalla metropolitana una stazione prima o dopo quella voluta.
Therese – scenografa teatrale - accetta un lavoro temporaneo durante le feste di natale al reparto giocattoli di un department store.
Un giorno vede avvicinarsi colei che presto scoprirà chiamarsi Carol, pareva emanasse luce, Therese è rapita affascinata intrigata al primo sguardo.
Therese ha una relazione con una specie di fidanzato, Richard, più perché è quello che ci si aspetta da lei: ma passione e slancio tra i due sono soggetti non pervenuti.
Carol acquista una bambola per sua figlia – di otto anni – e lascia l’indirizzo dove possono fargliela avere. Therese a quell’indirizzo manda anche un biglietto di auguri che firma col suo nome - in verità, usa il numero di matricola assegnatole al grande magazzino. Carol rimane colpita da quel gesto coraggioso, telefona al negozio, parla con Therese, la invita per un drink.
Carol appartiene a classe sociale più elevata di Therese, lo si vede subito: ma questa differenza di censo non sembra giocare alcun ruolo nella storia d’amore che le due s’avviano ad avere.
Partono per un viaggio insieme, verso ovest, verso l’Utah. Non proprio Thelma e Louise, ma abbastanza vicino.
Solo che Carol nel frattempo stava divorziando, e il marito le piazza un investigatore privato alle costole, occhio privato che le segue e fotografa e registra (audio).
Quando apprende della relazione, non solo clandestina ma addirittura lesbica, il marito minaccia Carol di portarle via la figlia. E Carol sa che non scherza, e che può riuscirci: sa che essersi innamorata di Therese la mette in una posizione giuridicamente fragile e perdente.
Highsmith, senza indugiare, senza pruderie, racconta tutto, anche l’amore fisico tra le due donne, le sue due eroine.
E chissà, forse perché c’è molto di personale in questa storia (le storie d’amore più importanti della Highsmith sono quelle con donne, gli uomini furono in transito) – nata nella mente di Patricia nel 1948 quando era impiegata in un posto di lavoro con un incarico come quello di Therese – mi pare a memoria che sia l’unico suo romanzo che finisce con una bella nota di speranza e possibilità aperta (anche la saga di Ripley lascia sensazione di morte e pericolo alla fine di ciascuno dei quattro episodi).
Un inno alla libertà di scelta. Grance Patricia.
January 5, 2016
Salt, as defined by Merriam-Webster: “…. an ingredient that gives savor, piquancy, or zest”….; or, as it relates to this story, the price (sacrifice) these women paid to live their lives truthfully (hence, the book title, I’m guessing). I admired Highsmith’s nerve and honesty for tackling this lesbian love story in the time period when it was so obviously taboo.
Therese Belivet is a young and struggling set designer working in a department store when she meets and instantly becomes enamored with Carol Aird, a sophisticated and wealthy married woman. The meeting leads to a relationship that causes Therese to mature as well as some foreseeable repercussions for the married mother, Carol.
Therese’s growth and transformations are subtle and nuanced. Initially, she is very naive, vulnerable and almost obsessively smitten with the older Carol. She later matures into a confident young woman with a sympathetic grasp of who Carol is and what she may be going through. The author captures the ecstasy (and agony) of an intense new love beautifully. It’s a thoughtful character study and erotic in a romantic sense rather than with explicit sex.
Lesbian literature is often suggested for my book group; and, even though there have been more than a few excellent choices (such as those written by Sarah Waters) many have been sub-par (pulp-like) fiction. It was enjoyable to read a novel where lesbian characters are so well-written with powerful descriptions of an intense new love that rings emotionally true.
The film adaptation is called "Carol" and coming soon to my theatre. I can’t wait!
Therese Belivet is a young and struggling set designer working in a department store when she meets and instantly becomes enamored with Carol Aird, a sophisticated and wealthy married woman. The meeting leads to a relationship that causes Therese to mature as well as some foreseeable repercussions for the married mother, Carol.
Therese’s growth and transformations are subtle and nuanced. Initially, she is very naive, vulnerable and almost obsessively smitten with the older Carol. She later matures into a confident young woman with a sympathetic grasp of who Carol is and what she may be going through. The author captures the ecstasy (and agony) of an intense new love beautifully. It’s a thoughtful character study and erotic in a romantic sense rather than with explicit sex.
Lesbian literature is often suggested for my book group; and, even though there have been more than a few excellent choices (such as those written by Sarah Waters) many have been sub-par (pulp-like) fiction. It was enjoyable to read a novel where lesbian characters are so well-written with powerful descriptions of an intense new love that rings emotionally true.
The film adaptation is called "Carol" and coming soon to my theatre. I can’t wait!
November 4, 2024
i never would have picked this up on my own, but list videos have a way of sneaking books that you've never heard of onto your tbr.
this is the book that the beloved sapphic movie Carol is based on. and while i can't say that i adored my reading experience, i really did enjoy what this book was in theory. it's one of the first lesbian pulp novels to give its heroines a happy ending. it's also one of the first lesbian novels to have two femmes in love.
and it's a book that i know i'll be thinking of years later. the age gap, the frank conversations about sexuality, the sacrifice that Carol makes. definitely worth a read.
this is the book that the beloved sapphic movie Carol is based on. and while i can't say that i adored my reading experience, i really did enjoy what this book was in theory. it's one of the first lesbian pulp novels to give its heroines a happy ending. it's also one of the first lesbian novels to have two femmes in love.
and it's a book that i know i'll be thinking of years later. the age gap, the frank conversations about sexuality, the sacrifice that Carol makes. definitely worth a read.
February 8, 2016
‘Don’t you want to forget it, if it’s past?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know just how you mean that.’
‘I mean, are you sorry?’
‘No. Would I do the same thing again? Yes.’
‘Do you mean with somebody else, or with her?’
‘With her,’ Therese said. The corner of her mouth went up in a smile.
‘But the end was a fiasco.’
‘Yes. I mean I’d go through the end, too.’
‘And you’re still going through it.’
Therese didn’t say anything.
Patricia Highsmith got the idea for Carol (or The Price of Salt as it was named originally) shortly after her first novel, Strangers on a Train was published. She lived in New York at the time, was depressed, and in need of money. She took a job as a sales assistant in a department store and, one day, met a lady customer in a mink coat. The stranger in the store made such a strong impression on her that it gave her an idea for a new book. An onset of fever (from chickenpox) shortly after the encounter helped with the writing.
I have no idea if the fever really had anything to do with the writing or whether this is just my impression but the story of Therese Belivet and Carol Aird had a feverish quality that had me hooked from the start and had me lose sleep because I had to know how the story would end. Yes, this was another one of those books where I had to stay up all night to finish it, even though the two protagonists were difficult to like at times.
Therese is in her early twenties (I think), stuck in a dead-end sales job, has aspirations of becoming a stage designer, and generally seems to lack empathy for any of the people around her. Carol, on the other hand, is a relatively well-off divorcee who gives off an air of detachment. It is only in the course of their story that we get to see behind the veneer that both characters put up for different reasons.
However, likable characters is not what Highsmith's books are about. For me, Highsmith's books are primarily about one thing - intensity. This is the aspect that has appealed to me most in her novels. And although the plot and thematic focus of Carol depart from the thriller genre that her publishers wanted her to follow, there is certainly enough "suspense" writing to have kept me reading until the wee hours. In particular, there are two scenes, where I sat on the edge of my seat: one in the later part of the book where I found myself yelling at Therese because she was behaving so childish it drove me mad, and one that had me glued to page thinking that if it were a scene in a film, the theatre audience would collectively gasp and fall silent to see what happens next."
This scene alone is one of the reasons I really want to see the film version and I am miffed that I didn't get a chance to see it at our local cinema.
I know that a few readers have found the book slow moving and boring, but I kinda liked the understated pace. It added to the feel of a 1950s road trip into the middle of nowhere, which, I thought, was also an appropriate metaphor for the relationship between Therese and Carol - a journey that lacked company, landmarks, or sign posts.
In the Afterword (written in 1989) of the edition I read, Highsmith wrote that she "like[s] to avoid labels. It is American publishers who love them."
As mentioned above, after the publication of her first novel, Strangers on a Train, Highsmith's publishers wanted to see her establish herself in the thriller genre. They rejected her manuscript of Carol and urged her to write another thriller. Defying her publisher's request, Highsmith offered to release the book under an alias and sought out another publisher who would to publish a lesbian romance novel that dared to criticise contemporary American society in 1952.
Considering that this could have been the end of a writing career that had not even started, yet, and considering that presumably there would also have been some backlash to her personal exposure, I truly admire Highsmith's insistence on getting the book published.
The publication itself is not the only break with commercial wisdom that happened with Carol. Highsmith also broke with the convention of how she described her characters as ordinary women, how she re-evaluated the importance of home life and family, and asked the specific question of what price people would pay to even attempt living a life of their own design. As such, I must admit that I actually preferred the book's original title: The Price of Salt.
"In the middle of the block, she opened the door of a coffee shop, but they were playing one of the songs she had heard with Carol everywhere, and she let the door close and walked on. The music lived, but the world was dead. And the song would die one day, she thought, but how would the world come back to life? How would its salt come back?"
‘I don’t know. I don’t know just how you mean that.’
‘I mean, are you sorry?’
‘No. Would I do the same thing again? Yes.’
‘Do you mean with somebody else, or with her?’
‘With her,’ Therese said. The corner of her mouth went up in a smile.
‘But the end was a fiasco.’
‘Yes. I mean I’d go through the end, too.’
‘And you’re still going through it.’
Therese didn’t say anything.
Patricia Highsmith got the idea for Carol (or The Price of Salt as it was named originally) shortly after her first novel, Strangers on a Train was published. She lived in New York at the time, was depressed, and in need of money. She took a job as a sales assistant in a department store and, one day, met a lady customer in a mink coat. The stranger in the store made such a strong impression on her that it gave her an idea for a new book. An onset of fever (from chickenpox) shortly after the encounter helped with the writing.
I have no idea if the fever really had anything to do with the writing or whether this is just my impression but the story of Therese Belivet and Carol Aird had a feverish quality that had me hooked from the start and had me lose sleep because I had to know how the story would end. Yes, this was another one of those books where I had to stay up all night to finish it, even though the two protagonists were difficult to like at times.
Therese is in her early twenties (I think), stuck in a dead-end sales job, has aspirations of becoming a stage designer, and generally seems to lack empathy for any of the people around her. Carol, on the other hand, is a relatively well-off divorcee who gives off an air of detachment. It is only in the course of their story that we get to see behind the veneer that both characters put up for different reasons.
However, likable characters is not what Highsmith's books are about. For me, Highsmith's books are primarily about one thing - intensity. This is the aspect that has appealed to me most in her novels. And although the plot and thematic focus of Carol depart from the thriller genre that her publishers wanted her to follow, there is certainly enough "suspense" writing to have kept me reading until the wee hours. In particular, there are two scenes, where I sat on the edge of my seat: one in the later part of the book where I found myself yelling at Therese because she was behaving so childish it drove me mad, and one that had me glued to page thinking that if it were a scene in a film, the theatre audience would collectively gasp and fall silent to see what happens next."
This scene alone is one of the reasons I really want to see the film version and I am miffed that I didn't get a chance to see it at our local cinema.
I know that a few readers have found the book slow moving and boring, but I kinda liked the understated pace. It added to the feel of a 1950s road trip into the middle of nowhere, which, I thought, was also an appropriate metaphor for the relationship between Therese and Carol - a journey that lacked company, landmarks, or sign posts.
In the Afterword (written in 1989) of the edition I read, Highsmith wrote that she "like[s] to avoid labels. It is American publishers who love them."
As mentioned above, after the publication of her first novel, Strangers on a Train, Highsmith's publishers wanted to see her establish herself in the thriller genre. They rejected her manuscript of Carol and urged her to write another thriller. Defying her publisher's request, Highsmith offered to release the book under an alias and sought out another publisher who would to publish a lesbian romance novel that dared to criticise contemporary American society in 1952.
Considering that this could have been the end of a writing career that had not even started, yet, and considering that presumably there would also have been some backlash to her personal exposure, I truly admire Highsmith's insistence on getting the book published.
The publication itself is not the only break with commercial wisdom that happened with Carol. Highsmith also broke with the convention of how she described her characters as ordinary women, how she re-evaluated the importance of home life and family, and asked the specific question of what price people would pay to even attempt living a life of their own design. As such, I must admit that I actually preferred the book's original title: The Price of Salt.
"In the middle of the block, she opened the door of a coffee shop, but they were playing one of the songs she had heard with Carol everywhere, and she let the door close and walked on. The music lived, but the world was dead. And the song would die one day, she thought, but how would the world come back to life? How would its salt come back?"
December 25, 2023
4 ½ stars
“My Angel,” Carol said. “Flung out of space.”
Fans of the film adaptation of Carol may find the novel to be not quite as polished or romantic. I, for one, find the novel’s elusiveness and opaqueness to be entrancing. Unlike other books by Highsmith Carol is not a thriller or a crime novel, however, it has plenty of moments of unease (dare I say even of ugliness?) that brought to mind The Talented Mr. Ripley. Therese is a somewhat disaffected young woman who wants to become a theatre set designer but in the meanwhile she works in the toy section of a department store in New York. She observes the world and people around her with a mixture of apathy and ambivalence, the only feelings she experiences seem negative (her repulsion towards her coworkers, her disinterest towards her beau, her dread at the idea of being stuck at the department store ).
“Had all her life been nothing but a dream, and was this real? It was the terror of this hopelessness that made her want to shed the dress and flee before it was too late, before the chains fell around her and locked.”
Estranged from her mother Therese longs for her boyfriend’s family more than the man himself. And then she sees Carol: “Their eyes met at the same instant, Therese glancing up from a box she was opening, and the woman just turning her head so she looked directly at Therese. She was tall and fair, her long figure graceful in the loose fur coat that she held open with a hand on her waist. Her eyes were gray, colorless, yet dominant as light or fire, and caught by them, Therese could not look away.”
Therese's infatuation is immediate, and the two women—in spite of their age gap, their differences in background and circumstances—begin to spend more and more time together. Highsmith's captures the intensity of first love, as Therese’s thoughts become increasingly preoccupied by Carol. There is a lot of longing in this novel and Highsmith expresses it beautifully, rendering the nuances of Therese’s uncertainty, jealousy, and yearning. Therese’s naïveté and Carol’s rocky marriage create friction between the two women, but the attraction and affection they feel for each other is palpable. Even if Carol remains a bit of a cypher, I too like Therese found myself drawn to her.
Some may find Therese’s narration to be too dry or cold, but I have always felt the most for characters such as her. I appreciated how Therese reflects upon the smallest of things, and there are times where she entertains rather cruel or disquieting. Nevertheless, I found her to be a sympathetic and interesting character, and I certainly admired her determination to follow her own heart.
The languid pace and alluring language make this into an unforgettable slow burner. I love the dreamlike quality of the narrative, the chemistry between Therese and Carol, the nostalgic atmosphere, the realistic rhythms of the dialogue, the winter setting...I don't know what more to say other than this novel just does it for me.
January 4, 2022
It is almost impossible to explore any idea without starting from some basic preconception. The idea here is same-sex relationships and the common preconception is that if the societal hurdles imposed on such ‘forbidden love affairs’- forbidden at the time this novel was written- were removed, all would be bright and rosy between the lovers. What Patricia Highsmith masterfully demonstrates with clear-eyed insight is that “human relationships are gravel, ever shifting under our feet; they are not concrete, as we are forever trying to believe.” Yes, despite what romantics wish to believe, things never fail to turn dark from time to time, right when you thought those lovers would live happily ever after.
This is the book that the 2015 film “Carol” was based upon, the success of which revived the interest in the lesbian cult classic that Highsmith published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan in 1952. It was only in 1990 that it was reissued as “Carol” under the real name of its author. Apart from the ‘career-suicide’ this book presented in 1952, it was also so personal to Highsmith that “it was difficult for her to take ownership of it for many years.”
On the face of it, the plot is pretty basic: 20-year-old Girl meets older Woman, Girl is attracted to Woman’s sophistication (and mother-ness), Woman is attracted to Girl’s vulnerability (and daughter-ness). Sex, subtly and elegantly, enters the picture. They give in to desire. They take off on the quintessential road-trip to freedom and self-knowledge in the American heartland. All hell breaks loose because society isn’t at all tolerant of such relationships, especially when one of the parties is a respectable wife and mother. There’s a price to be paid for all the ‘fun’: “the price of salt.” There always is…
I had only a vague recollection of the movie as a heart-wrenching, beautiful love story. It is that, of course, but it’s much more in its exploration of Love between two human beings, irrespective of their sex, or social status, or age difference, or whatever else categorizes us. Love and Attraction: the identities, the roles we assume in order to conquer and connect, to fit in the patterns of those we fall for. Highsmith is doing a marvellous job at describing those patterns and the dynamics between all of her characters, female or male. She unflinchingly depicts homosexual passions as well as universal power plays. The readers of the 1950s may have been too shocked or tantalized to see it but we, the readers of the 2020s, level-headed and urbane, should pay more attention to her carefully chosen words and scenes.
There’s plenty of suspense in this book but it’s of a different kind from that in her crime novels. I think it’s equally fascinating to not be able to predict which way the story will go in the end. Highsmith’s protagonists are fully realized characters who can go either way with their choices as long as they stay true to themselves. They are reluctant to conform to stereotypes, be they the conservatism of the society they live in, or the romantic notions of the fans of the genre. That was what ultimately made this a satisfying read for me on every one of its many levels.
This is the book that the 2015 film “Carol” was based upon, the success of which revived the interest in the lesbian cult classic that Highsmith published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan in 1952. It was only in 1990 that it was reissued as “Carol” under the real name of its author. Apart from the ‘career-suicide’ this book presented in 1952, it was also so personal to Highsmith that “it was difficult for her to take ownership of it for many years.”
On the face of it, the plot is pretty basic: 20-year-old Girl meets older Woman, Girl is attracted to Woman’s sophistication (and mother-ness), Woman is attracted to Girl’s vulnerability (and daughter-ness). Sex, subtly and elegantly, enters the picture. They give in to desire. They take off on the quintessential road-trip to freedom and self-knowledge in the American heartland. All hell breaks loose because society isn’t at all tolerant of such relationships, especially when one of the parties is a respectable wife and mother. There’s a price to be paid for all the ‘fun’: “the price of salt.” There always is…
I had only a vague recollection of the movie as a heart-wrenching, beautiful love story. It is that, of course, but it’s much more in its exploration of Love between two human beings, irrespective of their sex, or social status, or age difference, or whatever else categorizes us. Love and Attraction: the identities, the roles we assume in order to conquer and connect, to fit in the patterns of those we fall for. Highsmith is doing a marvellous job at describing those patterns and the dynamics between all of her characters, female or male. She unflinchingly depicts homosexual passions as well as universal power plays. The readers of the 1950s may have been too shocked or tantalized to see it but we, the readers of the 2020s, level-headed and urbane, should pay more attention to her carefully chosen words and scenes.
There’s plenty of suspense in this book but it’s of a different kind from that in her crime novels. I think it’s equally fascinating to not be able to predict which way the story will go in the end. Highsmith’s protagonists are fully realized characters who can go either way with their choices as long as they stay true to themselves. They are reluctant to conform to stereotypes, be they the conservatism of the society they live in, or the romantic notions of the fans of the genre. That was what ultimately made this a satisfying read for me on every one of its many levels.
January 6, 2016
OMG this book had the DULLEST LESBIANS EVER!!! I have read a lot of early queer pulp and normally I love them for their honesty and the raw emotion they present. Here there was none of that, everything just felt like it was being written about behind a veil. There was none of the soul searching and the camaraderie that is found in other lesbian pulps. The writing style did nothing for me either, I felt it was very dry. I almost felt like someone had described being in a queer relationship to Patricia and she decided to write about that based on her fantasies rather than personal experience.
I think the biggest problem I had with this was that Carol and Therese was totally boring. Carol was a rich housewife who did nothing. Therese wanted to have a career but spent her entire time moping expecting her boyfriend's connections to find her work. The two just seemed obsessed with money and shopping and having a very occasional cocktail. Even when they went on their "road trip" there was nothing interesting. There was no sense of adventure or place anywhere they visited. It was just a series of dull hotels. It made you wonder why they bothered to leave New York in the first place.
There are so many better old lesbian novels out there. I really can't recommend this one at all. Read Ann Bannon, Thereska Torres or Valerie Taylor instead.
I think the biggest problem I had with this was that Carol and Therese was totally boring. Carol was a rich housewife who did nothing. Therese wanted to have a career but spent her entire time moping expecting her boyfriend's connections to find her work. The two just seemed obsessed with money and shopping and having a very occasional cocktail. Even when they went on their "road trip" there was nothing interesting. There was no sense of adventure or place anywhere they visited. It was just a series of dull hotels. It made you wonder why they bothered to leave New York in the first place.
There are so many better old lesbian novels out there. I really can't recommend this one at all. Read Ann Bannon, Thereska Torres or Valerie Taylor instead.
December 31, 2019
Patricia Highsmith lives in an ugly world. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, is almost unbearably bleak. Ripley is...well, it’s a lot of things, but mainly it’s the first time someone wrote an entire series of books asking you to identify with a serial killer. But between them all, and under a fake name, she also wrote this beautiful, aching jewel of a love story. Who knew?
Highsmith
Not the public, not for thirty years. Astonishingly, Highsmith didn’t take credit for The Price of Salt until 1984. She didn’t want to be known as a “lesbian writer.” The book lurked along as a cult classic until then. It did this one silly, revolutionary thing, which unfortunately I can’t say without a big old
Carol
The other revolutionary thing it did, weirdly, is that Highsmith somehow wrote Cate Blanchett. She wouldn’t be born for 17 years but Carol is definitely her, in all her architectural beauty and her ungraspability. She’s slippery and oblique, hard to pin down. Therese, only dimly aware that she’s gay, throws herself at Carol early on and is more or less ignored. She describes Carol as the Winged Victory of Samothrace at one point, which is funny because
it has no head. Carol's tricky. But when she appears in the department store where Therese works, she tears through her world - heretofore as dismal as Strangers - and Highsmith lets her book explode with hope and life. It never really comes back down. Highsmith is one of our best writers, and this is her best book.
Highsmith was anguished about her own queerness; her characters confuse passion with murder fairly regularly. She fought and hid herself. "Persistently," she said, "I have the vision of a house in the country with the blond wife whom I love, with the children whom I adore, on the land and with the trees I adore. I know this will never be." She couldn't live it, but she could almost write it.
Highsmith
Not the public, not for thirty years. Astonishingly, Highsmith didn’t take credit for The Price of Salt until 1984. She didn’t want to be known as a “lesbian writer.” The book lurked along as a cult classic until then. It did this one silly, revolutionary thing, which unfortunately I can’t say without a big old
Carol
The other revolutionary thing it did, weirdly, is that Highsmith somehow wrote Cate Blanchett. She wouldn’t be born for 17 years but Carol is definitely her, in all her architectural beauty and her ungraspability. She’s slippery and oblique, hard to pin down. Therese, only dimly aware that she’s gay, throws herself at Carol early on and is more or less ignored. She describes Carol as the Winged Victory of Samothrace at one point, which is funny because
it has no head. Carol's tricky. But when she appears in the department store where Therese works, she tears through her world - heretofore as dismal as Strangers - and Highsmith lets her book explode with hope and life. It never really comes back down. Highsmith is one of our best writers, and this is her best book.
Highsmith was anguished about her own queerness; her characters confuse passion with murder fairly regularly. She fought and hid herself. "Persistently," she said, "I have the vision of a house in the country with the blond wife whom I love, with the children whom I adore, on the land and with the trees I adore. I know this will never be." She couldn't live it, but she could almost write it.
May 28, 2012
This book had me in pieces by the end. That last chapter, oh my god.
Never mind the notion of Patricia Highsmith as an "unloving and unlovable woman"-- she clearly understood the painful delicate aches of love and loving and, having lost, the bittersweet triumph in growing up. The Price of Salt carries an emotional honesty that is exquisite and devastating.
Highsmith's prose is simple but she realizes even the smallest moments with a keen observance. The results are gorgeous and tender, and at times even comic -- the melodramatic angst of interruptions, to the wistfulness in seeing a lover's hands, to the thrill of meeting for the first time... or again.
The romance being between two women should really hold no bearing of anyone's enjoyment of this book, but having read the afterword and knowing the climate during the time of publication makes the story seem especially courageous. Swoon!
Never mind the notion of Patricia Highsmith as an "unloving and unlovable woman"-- she clearly understood the painful delicate aches of love and loving and, having lost, the bittersweet triumph in growing up. The Price of Salt carries an emotional honesty that is exquisite and devastating.
Highsmith's prose is simple but she realizes even the smallest moments with a keen observance. The results are gorgeous and tender, and at times even comic -- the melodramatic angst of interruptions, to the wistfulness in seeing a lover's hands, to the thrill of meeting for the first time... or again.
The romance being between two women should really hold no bearing of anyone's enjoyment of this book, but having read the afterword and knowing the climate during the time of publication makes the story seem especially courageous. Swoon!
January 29, 2022
Reading Highsmith is like a drink of ice cold water - cleansing, refreshing, and invigorating. I noticed the same thing when I read The Talented Mr. Ripley. Her prose is so spare, so clear. It keeps me focused and skipping along the page. I love it.
Published in 1952, this story was originally written under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan" because of the controversial content - the love story between two women, Therese Belivet and the older, beautiful and mysterious Carol Aird. It's not terribly surprising that this book inspired Nabokov's Lolita.* Both books are steeped in intoxicating, overwhelming desire, with characters who act on this desire despite societal taboos.
By today's standards, the lesbian love story isn't all that shocking. Taken within the 1950's context though, the story is surprisingly frank and timeless. It's about two people navigating their relationship, with all the complications that come with it (not the least being Carol's daughter and very messy divorce). It's full of tension and atmosphere (did I mention the wonderful writing?). It's super stylish - ladies drinking old-fashioneds and highballs - and, the ending is not predictable.
Some parts felt a little long, which is why this isn't a 5, but it's pretty darn close.
PS There's a great scene I must mention that involves Therese struggling to fly a kite with her boyfriend who she is not attracted to, that English majors would love to dissect as a failing phallus - this was fascinating and entertaining.
*a hypothesis that Terry Castle advanced speculatively in a 2003 New Republic article on Highsmith, not a fact.
Published in 1952, this story was originally written under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan" because of the controversial content - the love story between two women, Therese Belivet and the older, beautiful and mysterious Carol Aird. It's not terribly surprising that this book inspired Nabokov's Lolita.* Both books are steeped in intoxicating, overwhelming desire, with characters who act on this desire despite societal taboos.
By today's standards, the lesbian love story isn't all that shocking. Taken within the 1950's context though, the story is surprisingly frank and timeless. It's about two people navigating their relationship, with all the complications that come with it (not the least being Carol's daughter and very messy divorce). It's full of tension and atmosphere (did I mention the wonderful writing?). It's super stylish - ladies drinking old-fashioneds and highballs - and, the ending is not predictable.
Some parts felt a little long, which is why this isn't a 5, but it's pretty darn close.
PS There's a great scene I must mention that involves Therese struggling to fly a kite with her boyfriend who she is not attracted to, that English majors would love to dissect as a failing phallus - this was fascinating and entertaining.
*a hypothesis that Terry Castle advanced speculatively in a 2003 New Republic article on Highsmith, not a fact.
January 12, 2023
Updated review: 5/30/21.
It was very daring of Patricia Highsmith to write a realistic love story between 2 women in the 1950s. It just wasn't done, at least not in public in real life nor in a novel. I appreciated the slow story and the fabulous ending all the more once I finished the novel and thought about it and the meaning of the original title, .A Price of Salt.. The title was the key to the meaning of the story for me.
So what does the title mean?
It was very daring of Patricia Highsmith to write a realistic love story between 2 women in the 1950s. It just wasn't done, at least not in public in real life nor in a novel. I appreciated the slow story and the fabulous ending all the more once I finished the novel and thought about it and the meaning of the original title, .A Price of Salt.. The title was the key to the meaning of the story for me.
So what does the title mean?
February 8, 2021
A puzzling start, a bit of a slow middle, and a satisfying ending. While I didn't actually connect with any of the main characters, the plot was enough to keep me going.
January 6, 2022
Definitely a well written and interesting book. I have to say I preferred the second half as it was a little more fast paced and that’s when things started to happen.
November 22, 2011
If you read enough books, you're bound to become jaded once in a while by all the sub par ones out there and then a book like The Price of Salt comes along to remind you just how great a book can really be and what a reading experience should really be like. Yes, I loved this book THAT much :)
My only other experience with Highsmith's work until then has been through Ripley movies and I liked the character of Ripley, but not enough to track down the books. I picked up this book, because the cover said that this was the one to inspire Lolita, one of my all time favorites.
This was the author's second book, originally published under a pseudonym to avoid being typecast as a lesbian writer. It was also for years misfiled as a mystery, which it really is not. It's a coming of age story, a story about relationships and consequences, a story about a road trip, an eye opening and fairly frightening account of how lesbians were treated as recently as 60 years ago, but most of all it's a really great love story, about first love, the most difficult of all.
I've read that Patricia Highsmith has been a particularly unpleasant person, particularly during her later years, which makes it so interesting how well and sympathetically she is able to describe the inner turmoils and thoughts and actions of her characters. I'd say in this book her writing shows great humanity. Of course, I am now interested in reading her other works, though I am not even a mystery fan, just to experience more of that amazing writing.
I can't recommend this book enough.
My only other experience with Highsmith's work until then has been through Ripley movies and I liked the character of Ripley, but not enough to track down the books. I picked up this book, because the cover said that this was the one to inspire Lolita, one of my all time favorites.
This was the author's second book, originally published under a pseudonym to avoid being typecast as a lesbian writer. It was also for years misfiled as a mystery, which it really is not. It's a coming of age story, a story about relationships and consequences, a story about a road trip, an eye opening and fairly frightening account of how lesbians were treated as recently as 60 years ago, but most of all it's a really great love story, about first love, the most difficult of all.
I've read that Patricia Highsmith has been a particularly unpleasant person, particularly during her later years, which makes it so interesting how well and sympathetically she is able to describe the inner turmoils and thoughts and actions of her characters. I'd say in this book her writing shows great humanity. Of course, I am now interested in reading her other works, though I am not even a mystery fan, just to experience more of that amazing writing.
I can't recommend this book enough.
December 11, 2015
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!!!
ALERT!!!! BIG BIG SPOILERS!!!
The Price of Salt, published in 1952, is considered the first book—and the only one for a very long time afterwards—to depict a lesbian relationship with a happy ending. Having just reread it, what strikes me now is how anyone, even lesbians, especially lesbians, could have thought that losing custody of your child with no visitation rights and being publicly humiliated in court and in the newspapers constituted a happy ending.
But we said, “At least neither of them died or went to jail or was committed to a mental institution or gave up her beloved to live a ‘normal’ life married to a man.” Because that was what happened to lesbian lovers in pulp fiction. And pulp fiction was the only place you could find stories about lesbian lovers.
When I puzzled over the title, The Price of Salt, what first occurred to me was a quote from the book of Matthew in the New Testament:
… if the salt should lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
I later learned from a biography of Patricia Highsmith that that is indeed where the title came from. In asking the price of salt, she is asking what price a person must pay to live an authentic life. In those days it was a high price, if it was possible at all.
At the end of the book Carol and Therese have a future together, and for us that was enough. So The Price of Salt does not have a happy ending, but it does have a hopeful one. And I am hopeful that the release of the movie will herald a time when no one, no matter how ‘different’, must settle for a life unsalted, without savour.
ALERT!!!! BIG BIG SPOILERS!!!
The Price of Salt, published in 1952, is considered the first book—and the only one for a very long time afterwards—to depict a lesbian relationship with a happy ending. Having just reread it, what strikes me now is how anyone, even lesbians, especially lesbians, could have thought that losing custody of your child with no visitation rights and being publicly humiliated in court and in the newspapers constituted a happy ending.
But we said, “At least neither of them died or went to jail or was committed to a mental institution or gave up her beloved to live a ‘normal’ life married to a man.” Because that was what happened to lesbian lovers in pulp fiction. And pulp fiction was the only place you could find stories about lesbian lovers.
When I puzzled over the title, The Price of Salt, what first occurred to me was a quote from the book of Matthew in the New Testament:
… if the salt should lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
I later learned from a biography of Patricia Highsmith that that is indeed where the title came from. In asking the price of salt, she is asking what price a person must pay to live an authentic life. In those days it was a high price, if it was possible at all.
At the end of the book Carol and Therese have a future together, and for us that was enough. So The Price of Salt does not have a happy ending, but it does have a hopeful one. And I am hopeful that the release of the movie will herald a time when no one, no matter how ‘different’, must settle for a life unsalted, without savour.
April 16, 2021
I think friendships are the result of certain needs that can be completely hidden from both people, sometimes hidden forever.
This review is a bit tricky because I don’t want to give anything away. Carol, by the sublime Patricia Highsmith did not disappoint.
The story centres around a young woman called Therese, who is a theatre set designer but currently working at a store in the crazy world of the toy department at Christmas time. Something I would have liked I reckon – hard work, but imagine the buzz! Anyway, Therese spends her day working hard, mostly confused, suffering under the humourless conduct of the supercilious supervisors – then one day, the beautiful Carol comes in to buy a doll. It sounds like a small event doesn’t it? BUT – Therese is walloped into orbit by this stylish, mature woman. She is totally captivated by her style, presence, eyes, smell, clothes (everything!!!), she must contact her. She does this by sending her a Christmas card.
This is when the drama starts. That’s all I need to say about the storyline.
This suffocatingly, dark offering from Highsmith is engrossing. I deliberately didn’t read anything about this story before picking it up (Highsmith was enough) and if you haven’t read this, I would gently suggest you do the same. So, what are we dealing with here? Is it all about obsession? Well there is certainly that – Therese’s fixation with Carol is obvious. Is it love or is it some sort of psychopathic preoccupation? The reader doesn’t know – we are left guessing, wondering. This is a very uneasy read. Does one want the best for Carol and Therese? Not really, even though they’re not disagreeable characters – we still don’t really know what they’re about, what do they want from this relationship? There’s the rub.
My word, I found the last 60 or 70 pages totally engrossing. Towards the end, I even put the book down a few times to do something trivial like rearrange my bedside table, or play with my dog’s ears, or brush my teeth for the second time. I am being totally truthful here – I just did not want it to end.
Well, end it did. It wasn’t disappointing. Hopefully I’ve said enough but not too much.
5 Stars
Footnote: This is the second book in a row (The other being Terms of Endearment) where a Pet Goat features. What are the chances of that happening?
This review is a bit tricky because I don’t want to give anything away. Carol, by the sublime Patricia Highsmith did not disappoint.
The story centres around a young woman called Therese, who is a theatre set designer but currently working at a store in the crazy world of the toy department at Christmas time. Something I would have liked I reckon – hard work, but imagine the buzz! Anyway, Therese spends her day working hard, mostly confused, suffering under the humourless conduct of the supercilious supervisors – then one day, the beautiful Carol comes in to buy a doll. It sounds like a small event doesn’t it? BUT – Therese is walloped into orbit by this stylish, mature woman. She is totally captivated by her style, presence, eyes, smell, clothes (everything!!!), she must contact her. She does this by sending her a Christmas card.
This is when the drama starts. That’s all I need to say about the storyline.
This suffocatingly, dark offering from Highsmith is engrossing. I deliberately didn’t read anything about this story before picking it up (Highsmith was enough) and if you haven’t read this, I would gently suggest you do the same. So, what are we dealing with here? Is it all about obsession? Well there is certainly that – Therese’s fixation with Carol is obvious. Is it love or is it some sort of psychopathic preoccupation? The reader doesn’t know – we are left guessing, wondering. This is a very uneasy read. Does one want the best for Carol and Therese? Not really, even though they’re not disagreeable characters – we still don’t really know what they’re about, what do they want from this relationship? There’s the rub.
My word, I found the last 60 or 70 pages totally engrossing. Towards the end, I even put the book down a few times to do something trivial like rearrange my bedside table, or play with my dog’s ears, or brush my teeth for the second time. I am being totally truthful here – I just did not want it to end.
Well, end it did. It wasn’t disappointing. Hopefully I’ve said enough but not too much.
5 Stars
Footnote: This is the second book in a row (The other being Terms of Endearment) where a Pet Goat features. What are the chances of that happening?
July 3, 2019
I recently saw the movie "Carol" and when I found out it's based on a book, I was surprised I hadn't heard of it -- a lesbian classic that had escaped my attention until now. Onto the TBR list it went. At first I didn't like the writing style but quickly got used to it and didn't want to put the book down. Even knowing pretty much what happens, there are some differences to the movie... and of course the book is always better!
(2019 classic book of the month for July)
(2019 classic book of the month for July)
September 27, 2025
I have become a fan of Patricia Highsmith's suspense books in the past year or so, but never read this book, The Price of Salt, which I knew to be a lesbian romance. It was, after Strangers on a Train, Highsmith's second novel, but since it was the fifties, she had to publish it (1952) under a pseudonym, Claire Morgan, but several years later she (finally!) published it as Carol, under her own name, and then Todd Haynes eventually made it into a film. Haynes fully understands the brutally repressive fifties for gltq folks, as you can see in this film and his earlier film, Far From Heaven.
The Price of Salt/Carol is indeed a romance, but it is understated, and seething with gestures and facial expressions that point to a volcano of emotions. Therese, 19, is dating a guy she likes, but isn't really into; she's temp-working in the doll section of a Manhattan department store. She's pretty passive, but one day Carol, 32, walks in and it is sort of love (or lust) at first sight. Carol also has men in her life, including a husband, and a daughter, Wendy, and we learn, as her husband learned, that she had a relationship with her current bff, Abby.
Therese agrees to drive to California with Carol, who is a little domineering for the passive Therese--she's evasive, and a little abrasive; Carol is at times a little condescending to the younger Therese--so they are actual human beings, not romantic fantasy figures, but they are still pretty crazy about each other. Carol's husband, with the help of Therese's jilted boyfriend, Phil, (these enraged straight males, rebuffed not because an affair with guys, but with women, omg!), hires a detective to follow them and tape conversations in motel rooms.
At issue is custody of Wendy, and in the early fifties this was not even possible for a woman seen as so decadent as to love another woman (though if you can't say "gay" today in Florida, even at Disney World, how much progress are we actually making here?!). But to cut to the chase (the book's chase, not the actual straight male rage-at-sexual-rejection chase), one aspect of the fame of this book is that it has a "relatively happy" ending, a first for a lesbian novel read widely in this country.
I was led to this book by a very good comics bio of Highsmith, Flung Into Space, about how The Price of Salt was written, in part based on Highsmith's own relationship with a woman who lost custody of her daughter based on a trial involving tape-recorded hotel trysts.
I loved this book, written with subtlety and with complex characters. At the moment, it is my favorite Highsmith book, tacking back and forth from anguish to delight, but I will probably be ultimately faithful to The Talented Mr. Ripley as my #1. I don't really know why it is that Highsmith, a lesbian, who wrote more than 20 books, only wrote one "lesbian" novel, but I am glad she wrote this one. The mysteries have plenty of homo-erotic undercurrents, but never anything referencing main characters' sex lives (though there is no explicit sex in Carol, either, as this was 1952).
The Price of Salt/Carol is indeed a romance, but it is understated, and seething with gestures and facial expressions that point to a volcano of emotions. Therese, 19, is dating a guy she likes, but isn't really into; she's temp-working in the doll section of a Manhattan department store. She's pretty passive, but one day Carol, 32, walks in and it is sort of love (or lust) at first sight. Carol also has men in her life, including a husband, and a daughter, Wendy, and we learn, as her husband learned, that she had a relationship with her current bff, Abby.
Therese agrees to drive to California with Carol, who is a little domineering for the passive Therese--she's evasive, and a little abrasive; Carol is at times a little condescending to the younger Therese--so they are actual human beings, not romantic fantasy figures, but they are still pretty crazy about each other. Carol's husband, with the help of Therese's jilted boyfriend, Phil, (these enraged straight males, rebuffed not because an affair with guys, but with women, omg!), hires a detective to follow them and tape conversations in motel rooms.
At issue is custody of Wendy, and in the early fifties this was not even possible for a woman seen as so decadent as to love another woman (though if you can't say "gay" today in Florida, even at Disney World, how much progress are we actually making here?!). But to cut to the chase (the book's chase, not the actual straight male rage-at-sexual-rejection chase), one aspect of the fame of this book is that it has a "relatively happy" ending, a first for a lesbian novel read widely in this country.
I was led to this book by a very good comics bio of Highsmith, Flung Into Space, about how The Price of Salt was written, in part based on Highsmith's own relationship with a woman who lost custody of her daughter based on a trial involving tape-recorded hotel trysts.
I loved this book, written with subtlety and with complex characters. At the moment, it is my favorite Highsmith book, tacking back and forth from anguish to delight, but I will probably be ultimately faithful to The Talented Mr. Ripley as my #1. I don't really know why it is that Highsmith, a lesbian, who wrote more than 20 books, only wrote one "lesbian" novel, but I am glad she wrote this one. The mysteries have plenty of homo-erotic undercurrents, but never anything referencing main characters' sex lives (though there is no explicit sex in Carol, either, as this was 1952).
July 19, 2024
Todd Haynes' film "Carol" is one of my favorites. Everything about the film- its design, texture, mood, swoony soundtrack and a career best performance from the predatory and luminous Cate Blanchett as Carol; and also a wonderfully textured and melancholy performance from Rooney Mara as Therese is one the ages, and for queer cinema.
When I learned that Patricia Highsmith wrote the novel titled "The Price of Salt", I was super excited that another one of her books had been adapted into a major film. I've seen "Strangers on a Train" and one of my favorite films as a kid was Minghella's immortal "The Talented Mr. Ripley" starring Matt Damon, and co-starring none other than a younger Cate Blanchett.
When I saw "Carol", I saw that she was a variation of the role Ms. Blanchett played in "Ripley", except older, wiser and more assured of her position and sexuality. In other words, her Meredith Logue could have been a cousin to Carol Aird.
"The Price of Salt" is the first time I've read a Highsmith novel. It is ethereal, melancholy, aching with sadness. It's a love story that is so poignant that it took my breath away with its moody sentences, jazzy cadences, and riffs that show the reader that love ebbs and flows, how the courtship between Carol and Therese takes its time to build.
By the time we get to the end, and in spite of all the oppression and homophobia that Carol has faced from her soon to be ex-husband Harge, their families, and other professionals who believe her lesbianism is "unhealthy", I found myself caring deeply for the happiness of two people simply who want to explore their love for one another.
It's a rare queer novel that doesn't end in tragedy, but simply as if it were life itself. There were some changes that Todd Haynes made in his film: Therese is a photographer, not a set designer (which I liked better because in the film she comes across a bit more passive, but being a set designer gives her some gumption that allows her to have more fight in her confrontations with Carol, her stereotypically intolerant boyfriend Richard; and Abby, Carol's ex girlfriend) but the plot remained the same. Visually, Blanchett and Mara are perfectly cast as these two women. I loved this book, I loved the film. More Patricia Highsmith!
When I learned that Patricia Highsmith wrote the novel titled "The Price of Salt", I was super excited that another one of her books had been adapted into a major film. I've seen "Strangers on a Train" and one of my favorite films as a kid was Minghella's immortal "The Talented Mr. Ripley" starring Matt Damon, and co-starring none other than a younger Cate Blanchett.
When I saw "Carol", I saw that she was a variation of the role Ms. Blanchett played in "Ripley", except older, wiser and more assured of her position and sexuality. In other words, her Meredith Logue could have been a cousin to Carol Aird.
"The Price of Salt" is the first time I've read a Highsmith novel. It is ethereal, melancholy, aching with sadness. It's a love story that is so poignant that it took my breath away with its moody sentences, jazzy cadences, and riffs that show the reader that love ebbs and flows, how the courtship between Carol and Therese takes its time to build.
By the time we get to the end, and in spite of all the oppression and homophobia that Carol has faced from her soon to be ex-husband Harge, their families, and other professionals who believe her lesbianism is "unhealthy", I found myself caring deeply for the happiness of two people simply who want to explore their love for one another.
It's a rare queer novel that doesn't end in tragedy, but simply as if it were life itself. There were some changes that Todd Haynes made in his film: Therese is a photographer, not a set designer (which I liked better because in the film she comes across a bit more passive, but being a set designer gives her some gumption that allows her to have more fight in her confrontations with Carol, her stereotypically intolerant boyfriend Richard; and Abby, Carol's ex girlfriend) but the plot remained the same. Visually, Blanchett and Mara are perfectly cast as these two women. I loved this book, I loved the film. More Patricia Highsmith!
November 18, 2025
Carol, Todd Hayne’s film adaptation of The Price of Salt, is one of my all time favorite movies. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara’s incredible performances, together with captivating 16mm cinematography and impeccable art direction, cast a spell—capture so much love and fear, longing and courage. It is a movie of its time—2015, somehow no longer the present; of the mid-century America it so lovingly recreates—and out of time entirely. I have been meaning to read Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel since the day I first saw Carol, and I truly don’t know why I waited so long.
The movie is remarkably true to the book. There is scarcely a scene or image in the film that isn’t here. Remarkably, the Carol and Therese of the film seem simply to have jumped up off the page and into the screen, like the children in Mary Poppins leaping through Dick Van Dyke’s chalk drawing. Carol—somehow warm and cold at the same time; Therese, poised between innocence and disaffection. The film is, of necessity, more economical than the novel, and that economy makes it sweeter, somehow. Lovelier. The novel is gorgeous, but also surprisingly bitter. Carol, in particular, is not as sympathetic in The Price of Salt as in Carol. Her internalized homophobia (to use an anachronistic phrase) is sometimes hard to read. And Therese’s loathing for her department store job, and the almost thoughtless way she draws out her relationship with sort-of boyfriend Richard, mean that the novel’s mood is downcast and a little paranoid almost before Therese and Carol even meet.
The novel does have one element the film couldn’t quite capture: Therese’s coming of age. Her personal growth animates the novel’s last third, making an already many-dimensioned story even richer. Almost more even than the romance, this aspect of the novel balances out the bitterness.
The movie is remarkably true to the book. There is scarcely a scene or image in the film that isn’t here. Remarkably, the Carol and Therese of the film seem simply to have jumped up off the page and into the screen, like the children in Mary Poppins leaping through Dick Van Dyke’s chalk drawing. Carol—somehow warm and cold at the same time; Therese, poised between innocence and disaffection. The film is, of necessity, more economical than the novel, and that economy makes it sweeter, somehow. Lovelier. The novel is gorgeous, but also surprisingly bitter. Carol, in particular, is not as sympathetic in The Price of Salt as in Carol. Her internalized homophobia (to use an anachronistic phrase) is sometimes hard to read. And Therese’s loathing for her department store job, and the almost thoughtless way she draws out her relationship with sort-of boyfriend Richard, mean that the novel’s mood is downcast and a little paranoid almost before Therese and Carol even meet.
The novel does have one element the film couldn’t quite capture: Therese’s coming of age. Her personal growth animates the novel’s last third, making an already many-dimensioned story even richer. Almost more even than the romance, this aspect of the novel balances out the bitterness.
January 31, 2015
I re-read this because I saw that Cate Blanchette is going to do the movie adaptation and after screaming HOLY CRAP THAT'S AMAZING! I wanted to refresh my memory of the story. Just as fantastic as the first time. Patricia Highsmith is one of the unsung heroes of the genre. Everyone talks about Chandler et al but no one has really focussed on how amazing Highsmith was. Her contributions to the genre cannot be understated.
You never hear stories about someone wanting to re-film Double Indemnity.
You never hear stories about someone wanting to re-film Double Indemnity.
April 13, 2020
I haven’t seen the movie Carol (based on this book) but, while reading this, I found it impossible to not see Cate Blanchett as Carol: perfect casting. I also couldn’t help thinking of the novel in cinematic terms during a tense scene in the middle of the novel, one involving a detective; empty U.S. highways; and a gun. I don’t believe Highsmith wrote her novels with films in mind, but they do seem to make good ones.
Speaking of the gun, once it was introduced, I kept thinking of Chekhov all through the rest of that road trip. I don’t know if the gun was introduced to thwart expectations, but it did create suspense, and compulsive reading.
I don’t mean to imply this is a thriller. It’s not that at all. It’s more a character study of the young woman whose viewpoint we see everything from, of her emotional awareness as she ages from nineteen to twenty-one. Notably, the men in Therese’s life call her Terry (perhaps I noticed that because that’s never been my nickname); the women do not.
Speaking of the gun, once it was introduced, I kept thinking of Chekhov all through the rest of that road trip. I don’t know if the gun was introduced to thwart expectations, but it did create suspense, and compulsive reading.
I don’t mean to imply this is a thriller. It’s not that at all. It’s more a character study of the young woman whose viewpoint we see everything from, of her emotional awareness as she ages from nineteen to twenty-one. Notably, the men in Therese’s life call her Terry (perhaps I noticed that because that’s never been my nickname); the women do not.
February 22, 2016
I wanted to read this before watching the movie ("Carol"), but I first found out about it from the fictional librarian in Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness. From the marketing of this title I could not tell if it was more of a love story or a thriller, and knowing Patricia Highsmith I held my breath through the entire book waiting for someone to turn into a sociopath.
This novel is set in the early 1950s, a time where not many women were openly involved in relationships with one another, leaving Therese without a framework and Carol with a choice - Therese or her daughter. Originally Highsmith published it under a pen name and did not own up to being the author of the book for at least twenty years. In the 1950s there were several lesbian pulp romance novels, but the accepted mode was that because of their "unacceptable" choices, someone had to end up with something tragic happening as "punishment." The original cover includes the tagline "the novel of a love society forbids," which would make you think the focus of the story is the two women against the world. It really isn't, it's far more subtle, two women figuring out their relationship within the typical conflicts of previous relationships and ongoing commitments. As romance goes, this was pretty realistic.
Discussed even more on Episode 052 of the Reading Envy podcast.
This novel is set in the early 1950s, a time where not many women were openly involved in relationships with one another, leaving Therese without a framework and Carol with a choice - Therese or her daughter. Originally Highsmith published it under a pen name and did not own up to being the author of the book for at least twenty years. In the 1950s there were several lesbian pulp romance novels, but the accepted mode was that because of their "unacceptable" choices, someone had to end up with something tragic happening as "punishment." The original cover includes the tagline "the novel of a love society forbids," which would make you think the focus of the story is the two women against the world. It really isn't, it's far more subtle, two women figuring out their relationship within the typical conflicts of previous relationships and ongoing commitments. As romance goes, this was pretty realistic.
Discussed even more on Episode 052 of the Reading Envy podcast.
May 17, 2021
GR deleted my review I guess.
Here's a close facsimile:
Patricia Highsmith's novels all seem to have that one common happy thread running through them - psychological tension. And how well, or differently, she accomplishes it seems to vary. The Price of Salt, or Carol, is the fourth I've read by the author and I've given 4 different ratings to each.
Young Therese Belivet, enduring a dreary dead end job at a large department store has her world rocked when a beautiful older woman, Carol, catches her eye in the toy department. Therese becomes obsessed with Carol, to such a high degree we start to wonder about her sanity:
'If Carol had to go home now, Therese thought, she would do something violent...'
Highsmith builds on that tension as the relationship develops - young Therese's insecurities and neuroses are manifested- she lives to please Carol, who we aren't quite sure about, until later, on a cross country road trip when the story picks up steam. The book was published in 1952 under a pseudonym and for yesterday's reader, this story probably was quite risqué and bold, but by today's standards it feels worn and familiar. For me it has the feel of an historical abstract, a study of sexuality, sexual identity and societal attitudes in the 1950's.
That's not to take anything away from Highsmith's wonderful lyrical prose, rich with symbolism, which i thought was a contrast from her more usual style-sparse, clean , cut to the bone.
I hear they made this into a pretty good movie with Cate Blanchett which I'm not quite curious enough to check out.
Here's a close facsimile:
Patricia Highsmith's novels all seem to have that one common happy thread running through them - psychological tension. And how well, or differently, she accomplishes it seems to vary. The Price of Salt, or Carol, is the fourth I've read by the author and I've given 4 different ratings to each.
Young Therese Belivet, enduring a dreary dead end job at a large department store has her world rocked when a beautiful older woman, Carol, catches her eye in the toy department. Therese becomes obsessed with Carol, to such a high degree we start to wonder about her sanity:
'If Carol had to go home now, Therese thought, she would do something violent...'
Highsmith builds on that tension as the relationship develops - young Therese's insecurities and neuroses are manifested- she lives to please Carol, who we aren't quite sure about, until later, on a cross country road trip when the story picks up steam. The book was published in 1952 under a pseudonym and for yesterday's reader, this story probably was quite risqué and bold, but by today's standards it feels worn and familiar. For me it has the feel of an historical abstract, a study of sexuality, sexual identity and societal attitudes in the 1950's.
That's not to take anything away from Highsmith's wonderful lyrical prose, rich with symbolism, which i thought was a contrast from her more usual style-sparse, clean , cut to the bone.
I hear they made this into a pretty good movie with Cate Blanchett which I'm not quite curious enough to check out.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 8,974 reviews