The romance “The Price of Salt” was first published in 1952 by novelist Patricia Highsmith under her pseudonym “Claire Morgan”.
My Thoughts
I must confess, I read the book after seeing the film. As I am a huge fan of Cate Blanchett and the film version of the book, I felt the need to read the book as well. The author’s name, Patricia Highsmith, is probably familiar to many. Though, after the film version of “The Price of Salt” called “Carol”, it was on everyone’s lips again.
The story follows 19-year-old Therese, who meets Carol Aird and is completely captivated by her. Although Carol is much older and married, the two begin a romance.
The first half of the book felt slow and very detailed. Also, I found Richard, Therese’s boyfriend, absolutely deadly annoying. He is the epitome of toxic masculinity on all levels. However, I thought people were generally rude to Therese for no reason, Carol included.
The second half was much better, and of course, the ending was beautiful! Primarily because of the following famous quote: “It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and in hell.”
By the way, as so often in the film, they changed some things from the original book. Nevertheless, I would recommend the book to anyone who loves the film as much as I do and who would like to know more details about Therese and Carol’s story.
My rating for ‘The Price of Salt’
I really enjoyed reading this book. Although it didn’t give me the same excitement as a 5-star book, I can totally recommend it.
About the author
Patricia Highsmith was a Texas-born novelist. She achieved worldwide fame mainly through her book series about “Tom Ripley”, which was made into several films.
The best-known adaption is the 1999 film version “The Talented Mr Ripley” with renowned actors such as Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law. She passed away in Switzerland in 1995, at 74.
