Et cetera : What We're Reading: The Price of Salt

Sometimes, going back into the past is a great way to find a new book. I've recently been reading books originally published in the 1950's and were considered "ahead of their time." This week's gem is a love story between two women available on the Libby app: "The Price of Salt" by Patricia Highsmith. Highsmith's writing style captured the main character, Therese Belivet, in such a manner that I completely understood her sense of displacement and awkwardness in the world. She was like a ghost going through the motions of living as a young, poor, creative soul until she fell in love with an older, more sophisticated, married mother of a small child named Carol. The two women find themselves on a road trip only to be hunted down by a private investigator intent on making Carol choose between her daughter or her lover. In the 1950's, a romance between two women could not have a happy ending and this book certainly attempted to shake the chains of convention.

(4.02 Goodreads.com)

Happy reading, friends!

~Heather Egan, Vinton Public Library Assistant