Novel by Patricia Highsmith
The Price of Salt (later republished under the title Carol) is a 1952 romance novel by Patricia Highsmith, first published under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan." Highsmith—known as a suspense writer based on her psychological thriller "Strangers on a Train"—used an alias as she did not want to be tagged as "a lesbian-book writer", and she also used her own life references for characters and occurrences in the story.
Although Highsmith wrote over 22 novels and numerous short stories and had many sexual and romantic relationships with women, "The Price of Salt" is her only novel about an unequivocal lesbian relationship, and its relatively happy ending was unprecedented in lesbian literature. It is also notable for being the only one of her novels with "a conventional 'happy ending'" and characters who had "more explicit sexual existences".
A British radio adaptation of the novel was broadcast in 2014. "Carol", a film adaptation released in 2015, was nominated for six Academy Awards and nine British Academy Film Awards.
Plot.
Therese Belivet is a lonely young woman, just beginning her adult life in Manhattan and looking for a chance to launch her career as a theatre set designer. When she was a young girl, her widowed mother sent her to an Episcopalian boarding school, leaving her with a sense of abandonment. Therese is dating Richard, a young man she does not love and does not enjoy having sex with. On a long and monotonous day at work in the toy section of a department store during the Christmas season, Therese becomes interested in a customer, an elegant and beautiful woman in her early thirties. The woman's name is Carol Aird and she gives Therese her address so her purchases may be delivered. On an impulse, Therese sends her a Christmas card. Carol, who is going through a difficult separation and divorce and is herself quite lonely, unexpectedly responds. The two begin to spend time together. Therese develops a strong attachment to Carol. Richard accuses Therese of having a "schoolgirl crush," but Therese knows it is more than that: she is in love with Carol.
Carol's husband, Harge, is suspicious of Carol's relationship with Therese, whom he meets briefly when Therese stays over at Carol's house in New Jersey. Carol had previously admitted to Harge that she had a short-lived sexual relationship months earlier with her best friend, Abby. Harge takes his and Carol's daughter, Rindy, to live with him, limiting Carol's access to her as divorce proceedings continue. To escape from the tension in New York, Carol and Therese take a road trip West as far as Utah, over the course of which it becomes clear that the feelings they have for each other are romantic and sexual. They become physically as well as emotionally intimate and declare their love for each other.
The women become aware that a private investigator is following them, hired by Harge to gather evidence that could be used against Carol by incriminating her as homosexual in the upcoming custody hearings. They realize the investigator has already bugged the hotel room in which Carol and Therese first had sex. On a road in Nebraska, after the detective has followed them for miles and clearly intends to continue doing so, Carol confronts him and demands that he hand over any evidence against her. She pays him a high price for some tapes even though he warns her that he has already sent several tapes and other evidence to Harge in New York. Carol knows that she will lose custody of Rindy if she continues her relationship with Therese. She decides to return to New York to fight for her rights regarding her daughter and will return to Therese as soon as she can. Therese stays alone in the Midwest; eventually, Carol writes to tell her that she has agreed not to continue their relationship.
The evidence for Carol's homosexuality is so strong that she capitulates to Harge rather than having the details of her behavior aired in court. She submits to an agreement that gives him full custody of Rindy and leaves her with limited supervised visits.
Though heartbroken, Therese returns to New York to rebuild her life. Therese and Carol arrange to meet again. Therese, still hurt that Carol abandoned her in a hopeless attempt to maintain a relationship with Rindy, declines Carol's invitation to live with her. They part, each headed for a different evening engagement. Therese, after a brief flirtation with an English actress that leaves her ashamed, quickly reviews her relationships—"loneliness swept over her like a rushing wind"—and goes to find Carol, who greets her more eagerly than ever before.
Major themes.
Lesbian spaces.
The heteronormative society illustrated in "The Price of Salt" forced Carol and Therese to seek refuge and freedom to express their sexuality. Susan Fraiman explains this as "shelter writing", which is the "safety, sanity and self-expression–survival in the most basic sense", which were not permitted to be expressed in the public sphere. As a result, the only constant safe lesbian space that Carol and Therese have is their home. Literary scholar Alice M. Kelly wrote that there are conversations about the spaces for homosexuals in the setting of 1950s New York. Kelly calls the private sphere a "homonormative tool" that shelters the "same-sex sexual practices within it to appease a mainstream society." Because they are surrounded by both people and societal norms that do not allow them to express their sexuality and relationship, their self-expression is limited to being concealed behind a heteronormative façade.
When Therese is first invited to Carol's home, she is in awe of her home as huge and clearly established, but Victoria Hesford explores how the setting is "an extension of the stultifying mechanisms of exchange and production that structure Frankenberg's", as her home fits into the perfect consumer's home. Everything and everyone have their place which all fit into this nuclear family and heteronormative society, so when Therese enters this home, she stands out and it reminds Carol that their relationship and her feelings cannot be truly hidden in her family home. Carol's family home is "a hollow monument to middle-class heteronormativity" and to escape it they both go on a liberating road trip, where the notion of the home as a "homonormative tool" from Kelly's work links, as both women conceal their relationship behind hotel room doors and in the later parts of the novel in their respected homes.
"The Price of Salt" not only explores lesbian spaces but also the sudden intervention of heteronormative society, represented through Harge hiring a detective to follow Carol and tape-record her most intimate moments with Therese as evidence to win sole custody of Rindy. This invasion of privacy ends Carol and Therese's retreat and breaks apart their relationship as Carol is forced to return into the heteronormative realm to win over her daughter, but it is too late, as they do not see her fit to be a mother due to her homosexuality.
"I said I would stop seeing you. I wonder if you will understand, Therese, since you are so young and never even knew a mother who cared desperately for you."
Age differences.
The age difference between Therese and Carol is a characteristic of Highsmith's novel that many critics have sought to analyse, particularly under readings of mother-daughter relations. Carol is only around ten years Therese's senior, but she becomes aged in her characterisation within "The Price of Salt". Jenny M. James argues in her article "Maternal Failures, Queer Futures: Reading The Price of Salt (1952) and Carol (2015) against Their Grain" that Carol becomes a maternal figure, involved in Therese's "queer, extended girlhood". There is a noticeable parental connection between the couple; Carol orders Therese around as if a child, Therese in turn sulks and experiences states of 'melancholy' when Carol disappoints her. Part way through the novel, Carol commands Therese to take a nap, and Therese complies, asking for a glass of warm milk, which Carol brings to her like a mother to child.
"What would you like, a drink?"
Therese knew she meant water. She knew from the tenderness and the concern in her voice, as if she were a child sick with fever. Then Therese said it: "I think I'd like some hot milk."
The corner of Carol's mouth lifted in a smile. "Some hot milk," she mocked. Then she left the room.
Carol's 'maternal' instincts appear throughout the novel, such as her teaching Therese how to drive, as well as constantly paying for Therese and offering cheques. There are numerous examples like this, where Carol maintains a position of authority over Therese, and Therese follows along like an obedient child. Furthermore, Carol directs Therese's behaviour within their public relationship to presumably avoid exposure.
Therese's youthfulness can be linked to her "relatively naïve perception", which feeds into the very presentation of her sexuality: an often-outward display of affection that Carol reprimands. Lindsay Stephens pays attention to this governing of "closeting" in her article, particularly drawing upon the instance where Therese takes Carol's arm in a moment of fondness.
Motherhood.
Jenny M. James makes a comparison between Rindy and Therese, as if they are competing for Carol's love. Carol seems to leave her motherhood behind to pursue a romantic relation with Therese. If we view the ending as a triumph on Therese's behalf, Rindy loses her mother in a sense, feeding into the idea that same-sex relationships and parenthood are mutually exclusive. It is equally important to recognise the restrictions of the law at the time, as "lesbian mothers...in this period lived under the threat of custody loss if their same-sex sexuality was discovered".
Background.
According to Highsmith, the novel was inspired by a blonde woman in a mink coat who ordered a doll from her while Highsmith was working as a temporary sales clerk in the toy section of Bloomingdale's in New York City during Christmas season of 1948:
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Highsmith recalled completing the book's outline in two hours that night, likely under the influence of chickenpox which she discovered she had only the next day: "fever is stimulating to the imagination." She completed the novel by 1951. The semi-autobiographical story was mined from her own life references and desire for a lost love. Highsmith described the character of Therese as having come "from my own bones". Playwright Phyllis Nagy, who met Highsmith in 1987 and developed a friendship with her that lasted for the remainder of Highsmith's life, said that Therese was Highsmith's "alter ego" and "the voice of an author."
The character of Carol Aird and much of the plot of the novel was inspired by Highsmith's former lovers Kathryn Hamill Cohen and Philadelphia socialite Virginia Kent Catherwood, and her relationships with them. Virginia Catherwood lost custody of her daughter in divorce proceedings that involved tape-recorded lesbian trysts in hotel rooms. The story shared the same "sexual behavior" and "intense emotion" obsessions that Highsmith's writing became known for.
Highsmith placed Therese in the world of the New York theater with friends who are "vaguely bohemian, artists or would-be artists" and signaled their intellectual aspirations by noting they read James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, the latter unmistakably lesbian. All are struggling to find a place for themselves in the world.
The first working title of the novel (written in her "cahier" No. 18) was "The Bloomingdale Story". Other names Highsmith later considered were "The Argument of Tantalus", "Blasphemy of Laughter", and "Paths of Lightening" before finally naming it "The Price of Salt". Highsmith said that she settled on the title from a thought about the price paid by Lot's wife when she looked back towards Sodom. It's more likely, however, that she was invoking a biblical reference from the Gospel text () that André Gide included in his novel "The Counterfeiters", a work about the transgressive love of adolescence that Highsmith once took to heart: "'If the salt have lost his flavor wherewith shall it be salted?'—that is the tragedy with which I am concerned."
Publication history.
Highsmith's publisher, Harper &amp; Bros, rejected the manuscript. Her agent warned her that she was committing career suicide by following "Strangers on a Train" with a blatantly lesbian novel. It was accepted by Coward-McCann and published in hardcover in 1952 with the "Claire Morgan" alias. She dedicated the book to "Edna, Jordy and Jeff"—three people whom Highsmith invented.
The 25-cent lesbian pulp edition by Bantam Books appeared in 1953,