Patricia Highsmith
The Price of Salt

Published by Diogenes as Salz und sein Preis
English Title: The Price of Salt (Carol)

A perfectly normal tale, except that in McCarthy’s America of 1952, when this cult novel about lesbian love was originally published under a pseudonym, anything that was a little out of the ordinary was viewed with extreme suspicion. Two women get to know each other and decide to make a long journey together. A private detective follows them, in order to compile evidence of their erotic relationship. One of the women breaks off the journey. The other remains, brooding, and eventually she too decides to return. The two women have spent many days and travelled many kilometres together, becoming friends and lovers – an electrifying amour fou. A moral dilemma for one of the women, who will have to pay a high price no matter what she decides. And a road novel in the style of ›Thelma and Louise‹, with a difference: the only crime that Carol and Therese have committed is to have fallen in love with each other. ›The Price of Salt‹ is the only novel by Patricia Highsmith about a fulfilled love, a love perceived as happiness rather than as a wicked delusion. Never again would the author, who began work on this novel in the wake of a personal encounter, write such sensuous, poetic and sexy prose.

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