Is ‘Riverdale’s ‘The Cost of Pepper’ A Real Book?

Towards the end of last night’s episode of Riverdale, Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) leaves Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) at the bus station after refusing to elope with him. What Cheryl has started to realize, or at the very least be honest with herself about, is that she’s not interested in boys. So what does that mean for a teen in 1955? Thanks to a book handed to her by Toni Topaz (Vanessa Morgan) titled The Cost of Pepper, she’s about to find out.

Here’s the deal: no, The Cost of Pepper is not a real book. Instead, it’s a classic Riverdale take on another, actually real book that held a similar function for women struggling with understanding their sexualities in the 1950s — and beyond. That book? The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith.

The Price of Salt? The Cost of Pepper? You get it.

Anyway, first published in 1952 under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, The Price of Salt is the rare book of the era that not only included a lesbian romance but also ended (relatively) happily for both central female characters (i.e., neither of them horribly died). Ostensibly, the book was sold as your classic pulp romance of the era, complete with buxom females on the cover in sultry poses and a dangerous man in the background. In fact, it was a serious exploration of a woman named Therese, unhappy in her marriage, who meets another woman, named Carol, with similar proclivities. They strike up a romance, her husband investigates them, and they break up rather than go to jail for being lesbians. By the book’s end, the two women actually do find each other, with the promise that their relationship might begin again in earnest.

If the plot sounds familiar, and you weren’t a lesbian in the 1950s, that could be because it was later adapted into the movie Carol. Directed by Todd Haynes, the 2015 movie starred Cate Blanchett as Carol and Rooney Mara as Therese, and was nominated for six Academy Awards.

While The Cost of Pepper movie probably will never happen since the book doesn’t exist, more important than this little in-joke is that The Price of Salt was far from the only lesbian pulp novel passed around in the ’50s and ’60s. In fact, for women repressed by their era — like Cheryl Blossom — confused about what these sexual and romantic feelings towards women meant, these novels were a godsend. They were raised in a society that not only repressed homosexuality but didn’t even provide them the bare bones information and vocabulary to be able to describe who, and what they are. But these books, with their pulpy covers that were supposed to appeal to men, were passed around by lesbians and bisexuals as not-so-subtly coded messages that “hey, these feelings you are having… they’re real, and you’re not the only one.”

While it was quite literally illegal to talk about these feelings out loud, let alone act on them, pulps like The Price of Salt were a way of talking without talking. Women could have their book clubs, and the men in their life wouldn’t look twice, while the women would start to figure out that the men aren’t what they want after all. That’s the journey Cheryl Blossom has begun on Riverdale and the one that Toni rightfully tells her is something she needs to do for herself; not for Toni.

As viewers, we know that Toni and Cheryl will end up together. After all, they’re one of the great romances of the series, and even Riverdale‘s trip back to 1955 can’t stop these two immortal soulmates. But the first step is Cheryl accepting herself, and that first step has been taken thanks to The Cost of Pepper. The book may not be real, but the circumstances, and Cheryl’s feelings, definitely are.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on The CW.