Interested in this title? Use the link below to find this title in the catalog.
A chance encounter between two lonely women leads to a passionate romance in this lesbian cult classic. Therese, a struggling young sales clerk, and Carol, a homemaker in the midst of a bitter divorce, abandon their oppressive daily routines for the freedom of the open road, where their love can blossom. But their newly discovered bliss is shattered when Carol is forced to choose between her child and her lover.
Author Patricia Highsmith is best known for her psychological thrillers Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Originally published in 1952 under a pseudonym, The Price of Salt was heralded as "the novel of a love society forbids." Highsmith's sensitive treatment of fully realized characters who defy stereotypes about homosexuality marks a departure from previous lesbian pulp fiction. Erotic, eloquent, and suspenseful, this story offers an honest look at the necessity of being true to one's nature. The book is also the basis of the acclaimed 2015 film Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
(Summary provided by the publisher)
Patricia Highsmith (born January 19, 1921, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.—died February 4, 1995, Locarno, Switzerland) was an American novelist and short-story writer who was best known for psychological thrillers, in which she delved into the nature of guilt, innocence, good, and evil.
Highsmith, who took her stepfather’s name, graduated from Barnard College, New York City, in 1942 and traveled to Europe in 1949, eventually settling there. In 1950 she published Strangers on a Train, an intriguing story of two men, one ostensibly good and the other ostensibly evil, whose lives become inextricably entangled. The following year the novel was made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock, using a screenplay by Raymond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) is the first of several books featuring the adventures of a likable murderer, Tom Ripley, who takes on the identities of his victims. The novel won various awards for mystery writing. Ripley also appears in Ripley Under Ground (1970), Ripley’s Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), and Ripley Under Water (1991). Several novels in the Ripley series were adapted for TV and film.
Among Highsmith’s other books are The Price of Salt (1952; written under the pseudonym Claire Morgan), a tale of a love affair between a married woman and a younger, unmarried woman (filmed in 2015 as Carol, the name under which the novel was published in 1990 and thereafter), and The Animal-Lover’s Book of Beastly Murder (1975), about the killing of humans by animals. Highsmith’s collections of short stories include The Black House (1981) and Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes (1987). Highsmith also wrote on the craft of writing. In her Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (1966; revised and enlarged 1981), she held that “art has nothing to do with morality, convention, or moralizing.” Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks, 1941–1995 (edited by Anna von Planta) was published posthumously in 2021.
(Biography provided by Brittanica)
