According to Highsmith, the novel was inspired by a blonde woman in a mink coat[b] who ordered a doll from her while Highsmith was working as a temporary sales clerk in the toy section of Bloomingdale's in New York City during Christmas season of 1948:[c]
Perhaps I noticed her because she was alone, or because a mink coat was a rarity, and because she was blondish and seemed to give off light. With the same thoughtful air, she purchased a doll, one of two or three I had shown her, and I wrote her name and address on the receipt, because the doll was to be delivered to an adjacent state. It was a routine transaction, the woman paid and departed. But I felt odd and swimmy in the head, near to fainting, yet at the same time uplifted, as if I had seen a vision. As usual, I went home after work to my apartment, where I lived alone. That evening I wrote out an idea, a plot, a story about the blondish and elegant woman in the fur coat. I wrote some eight pages in longhand in my then-current notebook or cahier.[1]
Highsmith recalled completing the book's outline in two hours that night, likely under the influence of chickenpox which she discovered she had only the next day: "fever is stimulating to the imagination." She completed the novel by 1951.[6] The semi-autobiographical story was mined from her own life references and desire for a lost love.[7] Highsmith described the character of Therese as having come "from my own bones".[3] Playwright Phyllis Nagy, who met Highsmith in 1987 and developed a friendship with her that lasted for the remainder of Highsmith's life, said that Therese was Highsmith's "alter ego" and "the voice of an author."[8]
The character of Carol Aird and much of the plot of the novel was inspired by Highsmith's former lovers Kathryn Hamill Cohen[9][10] and Philadelphia socialite Virginia Kent Catherwood,[11][12][13] and her relationships with them.[14][15] Virginia Catherwood lost custody of her daughter in divorce proceedings that involved tape-recorded lesbian trysts in hotel rooms.[12] The story shared the same "sexual behavior" and "intense emotion" obsessions that Highsmith's writing became known for.[8]
Highsmith placed Therese in the world of the New York theater with friends who are "vaguely bohemian, artists or would-be artists" and signaled their intellectual aspirations by noting they read James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, the latter unmistakably lesbian. All are struggling to find a place for themselves in the world.[16]
The first working title of the novel (written in her "cahier" No. 18) was "The Bloomingdale Story". Other names Highsmith later considered were "The Argument of Tantalus", "Blasphemy of Laughter", and "Paths of Lightening" before finally naming it The Price of Salt.[3] Highsmith said that she settled on the title from a thought about the price paid by Lot's wife when she looked back towards Sodom. It's more likely, however, that she was invoking a biblical reference from the Gospel text (Matthew 5:13) that André Gide included in his novel The Counterfeiters, a work about the transgressive love of adolescence that Highsmith once took to heart: "'If the salt have lost his flavor wherewith shall it be salted?'—that is the tragedy with which I am concerned."[3][17][d]
