Peyton Place 1957

Published in the fall of 1956, Peyton Place became a bestseller and transformed the concept of the soap opera, all in one book. The novel was lurid and gripping which includes murder, incest, female desire, abortion, suicide, and rape. The book would spawn a very successful film which was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and television's first prime-time serial. A week before it hit bookstores, on September 24, 1956, it was already on the best-seller list, where it would remain for half a year. In its first month, it sold more than 100,000 copies, at a time when the average first novel sold 3,000, total. It would go on to sell 12 million more, becoming one of the most widely read novels ever published. During its heyday, it was estimated that one in 29 Americans had bought it—legions of them hiding it in drawers and closets due to its salacious content.Other books similar to Peyton Place that were published before were these best-sellers: Forever Amber (1944) by Kathleen Winsor and King's Row (1940) by Henry Bellamann, both of which were also made into highly successful films.With its famously suggestive beginning — “Indian summer is like a woman. Ripe, hotly passionate, but fickle, she comes and goes as she pleases so that one is never sure whether she will come at all, nor for how long she will stay. In northern New England, Indian summer puts up a scarlet-tipped hand to hold winter back for a little while." With those words the novel moves you slowly and confidently in the direction of something that might be vulgar. Peyton Place was created over a decade of writing, much of it done while Metalious was locked in the bathroom of her troubled childhood home while she developed a piercing awareness of class and sexual politics. Peyton Place was not political in any direct sense, but it did serve as probing account of gender and class consciousness in a small town. In her novel she describes a petty, mean-spirited town where nasty secrets seethe behind a facade of old-fashioned propriety. “The function of a novel is to entertain, but you can have an ax to grind at the same time,” the author said when the book was published. Grace Metalious’ novel was banned in several cities, declared “indecent” by Canada and labeled by New Hampshire’s Manchester Union-Leader as symbolic of a “complete debasement of taste.” A sign in front of a library in Beverly Farms, Mass., read: “This library does not carry Peyton Place, If you want it, go to Salem.”“The late Sinclair Lewis would no doubt have hailed Grace Metalious as a sister-in-arms against the false fronts and bourgeois pretensions of allegedly respectable communities,” critic Carlos Baker wrote in a New York Times review that ran when the book was released.Peyton Place centers on the fortunes of three women: Allison McKenzie, a teenager and aspiring writer; her friend, Selena Cross, a dark-haired “bad girl” from the other side of the tracks; and Allison’s mother, Constance McKenzie, who conforms to the social codes of the times and avoids men she retains a whiff of something from the Victorian era. Her secret is that her daughter Allison is illegitimate and she was living in New York City when Allison was born. She begins to question her life when the town’s handsome new school principal Tomas Makris, enters into the picture.Marie Grace DeRepentigny was born on September 8, 1924 in Manchester, New Hampshire, a heavily Franco-American working-class city known for its textile mills. Her father, a merchant seaman, left the family when she was 10. She graduated from Central High School, married George Metalious at 19, and gave birth to three children. Since her childhood she dreamed of being a writer. She began writing Peyton Place at 30, while George taught school in Gilmanton.

Grace was an unpretentious housewife who lived with her three children in a ramshackle cottage in a small New England mill town and overnight she zoomed to national stardom.She insisted Peyton Place was based on several places in New Hampshire – including Durham, where her husband attended the University of New Hampshire; Gilmanton, where he taught school; and Laconia, where her favorite bar was located. Grace refused to be confined by the 1950s notions of a woman's place. In her struggle to find herself, she lifted the lid off sex and violence, power, truth and hypocrisy, and became known as the "Pandora in Blue Jeans." "If I'm a lousy writer," she said, "then an awful lot of people have got lousy taste." Metalious was sheepish about the association of the Peyton Place label with its trashiness that she threw her drink in the face of the television's show’s screenwriter when he asked if it was autobiographical.Reporters could not resist the story: A wife and mother of three had written this sensational expose. Her own affairs, her personal excesses, her outspokenness, continually shocked and fascinated America. Grace Metalious' life is a classic example of "be careful what you wish for". Unfortunately, 1950s America was not ready for Grace. While there's no doubt Grace is a flawed individual (who isn't), let us never forget she paved the way for honest and realistic depictions of women's issues including violence, abortion, independence and sensuality. Grace literally "willed" herself out of poverty by writing Peyton Place. She had a success the first time around with Peyton Place, but could never get over the realization that that one book was the standard that would defy her success in all other books, even the personal autobiographical works that gave in depth looks at her own feelings. Her life was a rags to riches, literally. She never stopped to look down on anyone who did not have what she accomplished. She often sent manuscripts to her publisher or agent trying to help other authors who wanted to make it too.Grace was plagued by periods of self-doubt and loneliness, striving desperately and feeling pressured to create another "hit." Her other novels sold well but never achieved the same success as her first. Return to Peyton Place (1959) was followed by The Tight White Collar (1961) and No Adam in Eden (1963).Grace Metalious' life is the story of a woman out of step with her times, a poignant tale of a strong yet vulnerable individual who dreamed of having everything -- and then unfortunately found it. Suffering from cirrhosis of the liver from years of heavy drinking, Metalious died on February 25, 1964, age 39. "If I had to do it over again," she once remarked, "it would be easier to be poor. Before I was successful, I was as happy as anyone gets." Meanwhile, her novel, or at least the title, lived on. “Peyton Place” was turned into a highly successful, but a slightly tame film starring Lana Turner, Hope Lange, Diane Varsi, and later a wholly domesticated TV series, starring Mia Farrow and Ryan O’Neal. Grace's estate proved to be insolvent from years of lavish living, over generosity towards "friends", and embezzlement by an agent. At the time of her death she had bank accounts totaling $41,174 and debts of more than $200,000