Carol, or The Price of Salt: Patricia Highsmith
A melancholy lesbian classic
Patricia Highsmith’s Carol/The Price of Salt (1952) isn’t quite the happy lesbian novel it’s described as, because there’s a bittersweet joylessness that’s pervasive throughout. It starts off with a young girl, Therese Belivet, in her first little apartment in Manhattan, working as a shop girl, hoping to make it as a set designer, while dating a young man that she’s not in love with nor attracted to. Her life suddenly changes when a beautiful older blonde, Carol Aird, approaches Therese at the shop to buy a gift for her daughter. There’s a spark, a sort of instant attraction, based on a real life attraction that Highsmith felt that inspired this novel.
Therese has Carol’s address from the delivery of the gift Carol purchased, and impulsively sends her a Christmas card. Carol, lonely, going through a divorce, responses to Therese by calling the shop and asking her to a lunch. The two begin to spend more time together, a standard romance except that it’s between two women. Therese’s boy…