Books › The Price of Salt
The Price of Salt
First published 1993 · 467 pages
A slow-burn, psychologically tense mid-century romance that crackles with the intoxicating, dangerous thrill of forbidden desire.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like stepping into a dimly lit, smoke-filled 1950s cocktail lounge—it is atmospheric, deeply intoxicating, and laced with an undercurrent of genuine danger. The narrative unfolds with a steady, hypnotic rhythm, pulling you into a world where every glance is loaded and every touch feels like a risk. The prose is famously cool and precise, yet it masterfully captures the feverish, almost obsessive nature of sudden infatuation. As the story shifts from the claustrophobic streets of New York to a sprawling, paranoid cross-country road trip, the tension tightens like a coiled spring. It will thoroughly delight readers who love slow-burn, psychologically rich queer romances that treat love not just as a romance, but as a thrilling, high-stakes rebellion.
- Mood
- intoxicating
- claustrophobic
- melancholic
- tense
- Tone
- observant
- yearning
- intense
- unsentimental
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- obsessive desire · queer awakening · the cost of authenticity · societal alienation · mid-century isolation
- The writing
- Cool, precise, and psychologically penetrating, masking intense emotional turbulence beneath a deceptively calm, mid-century surface.
- The arc
- Moves from suffocating, lonely yearning through the feverish intoxication of new love, culminating in a tense but profoundly hopeful defiance.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave atmospheric, slow-burn queer romances where psychological tension and obsessive longing take center stage.
Content notes
- homophobia
- child custody disputes
- period-typical sexism
- mild stalking
About the book
THE PRICE OF SALT is the famous lesbian love story by Patricia Highsmith, written under the pseudonym Claire Morgan. The author became notorious due to the story's latent lesbian content and happy ending, the latter having been unprecedented in homosexual fiction. Highsmith recalled that the novel was inspired by a mysterious woman she happened across in a shop and briefly stalked. Because of the happy ending (or at least an ending with the possibility of happiness) which defied the lesbian pulp formula and because of the unconventional characters that defied stereotypes about homosexuality, THE PRICE OF SALT was popular among lesbians in the 1950s. The book fell out of print but was re-issued and lives on today as a pioneering work of lesbian romance.
Description from Open Library.
Books like The Price of Salt
See why they match
The Cry of the OwlPatricia HighsmithA masterclass in creeping dread where the line between observer and victim blurs into a suffocating nightmare.
The desert of the heartJane RuleA sun-drenched, mid-century awakening where the stark heat of the Nevada desert thaws a lifetime of rigid repression.
Rubyfruit JungleRita Mae BrownA fiercely funny, unapologetic romp through mid-century America that celebrates living loudly and loving women without an ounce of shame.
Oranges Are Not the Only FruitJeanette WintersonA fiercely witty, myth-infused rebellion against the suffocating confines of religious fundamentalism and compulsory heterosexuality.
The well of lonelinessRadclyffe HallA sweeping, melancholic tragedy of forbidden love and the agonizing search for a place in a world that demands conformity.
Strangers On a TrainPatricia HighsmithA claustrophobic descent into shared guilt that proves how easily an ordinary life can be derailed by a single, dark conversation.