The Price of Salt

Patricia Highsmith 1952

Devastation Rating

Ugly Crying
queer 1950s love freedom

Our Take

Published pseudonymously because a queer love story with a happy ending was considered too dangerous to own. Highsmith gives Carol and Therese their future, but the cost of getting there — the surveillance, the custody threat, the grinding shame — is the real story. That it ended well felt like a miracle in 1952.

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