Book Review - Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt
Published by: Dover Publications
Publication Date: 1952
Format: Kindle, 260 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)
Therese Belivet moved to New York in the hopes of being a set designer. But waiting and hoping and making models doesn't pay the bills so she is working at Frankenberg's department store during the holiday season. She's in the toy section selling dolls and is oppressed by the noise of the toy train by the elevators, the din of the customers, and the general chaos that working in retail entails. Her life is a grind, a depressing mix of cafeteria meals and hoping her boyfriend Richard comes through with a job opportunity for her in the theater after Christmas. All this changes when she sees Carol. Carol Aird comes into Frankenberg's to buy a doll for her daughter. The doll is to be sent to Carol's home in New Jersey and the address is emblazoned on Therese's heart. She doesn't know what possesses her but after Carol leaves she rushes to send her a card. Carol calls the store, intrigued by being sent a card from an employee of Frankenberg's. She wonders if this is common practice but learns that it, and the girl who sent it, are not in the least common. Carol is going through a divorce and is separated from her daughter Rindy for the holiday season so she takes in Therese like a stray. They drive around together, sit for hours doing nothing, listening to music, having dinners out, even getting a Christmas tree for which Therese makes all the decorations. They are fast friends. As Therese muses, "It would be almost like love, what she felt for Carol, except that Carol was a woman." But women can love. And that's one of the reasons that Carol is being kept away from Rindy. The divorce isn't going well because of something that happened in her past with her friend Abby. But what Therese feels, Abby could never have felt. As Carol and Therese take to the open road the future is wide open but their past is closing in.
The Price of Salt is a classic of lesbian fiction and it's easy to see why; two women fall in love and are given a chance at a happily ever after. This was something unheard of in literature of the time as it defied all tropes of the genre. Which makes it an important book even if it's a very flawed book. The problem is that both characters are enigmas. They are ciphers. Neither really shows themself to the other fully. We have full insight into Therese's fractured and half finished thoughts as the story is from her point of view but Carol is a conundrum. Yes, I know that they are two people dancing around a taboo subject and it isn't until their trip that they take the risk to finally put their feelings into words and actions, but this makes most of the book an almost excruciating read. It isn't just a "will they won't they" situation it's a Waiting for Godot level situation. And if you're not in the mood for that level of interminable fatalism, well, then this book might not be for you. For the most part it wasn't for me until it was. Because buried among all the things not done and said all of a sudden there's this heart of gold. Yes, I'm saying The Price of Salt should have been a road trip novella. Therese and Carol finally being a couple, just touring the country, oddly skipping Wisconsin on the way from Rockford to Minneapolis, I mean, who seriously goes via Iowa, is a delight. They take pictures and do things normal couples do, they talk, they love, and we learn more about them in these few chapters than in the whole rest of the book. Plus Highsmith, with her accomplished crime fiction background, has this delicious foreboding building. Could they be being followed? Has Carol's husband given her enough rope to hang herself? All the while there's that gun in Carol's suitcase and you can't help but wonder, will it be used? Could Highsmith be going for a dark ending for our lovers? Because literature of the day demands it. When she taps the breaks, that's when you realize what a genius she is. Just not a genius at editing.
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