Peyton Place (book)
"Peyton Place" is a novel by Grace Metalious, published in the mid-1950s, that explores the hidden scandals and secrets of small-town life in America. The story revolves around three central women: the sophisticated Constance MacKenzie, her illegitimate daughter Allison, and working-class Selena Cross, who struggles against the societal norms of the time. The book addresses themes such as hypocrisy, sexual abuse, and women's rights, presenting a candid view of issues that would later influence the feminist movement, including rape and abortion.
Metalious's unflinching portrayal of these sensitive topics was groundbreaking, earning her the nickname "Pandora in blue jeans" and igniting controversy for its frankness. "Peyton Place" became a cultural phenomenon, selling millions of copies, surpassing even "Gone with the Wind" as the best-selling fiction book of its time. Despite facing significant backlash, including bans from libraries, the novel resonated deeply with readers, particularly women, and has remained a significant touchstone in discussions of gender and societal expectations. The impact of "Peyton Place" extended beyond literature, inspiring a sequel, a film adaptation, and a long-running television series.
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Peyton Place (book)
Identification Sensational novel about dark secrets in a small New England town
Date Published in 1956
Author Grace Metalious
One of the best-selling fiction books of all time, Peyton Place was among the most controversial novels of the 1950’s.
Key Figures
Grace Metalious (1924-1964), author
During the mid-1950’s, Grace Metalious, a small-town mother of three who had never published a word, sat down at her typewriter and proceeded to write a book that shocked the nation. Like Henry Bellaman’s Kings Row (1940) sixteen years earlier, Metalious’s novel, Peyton Place, described the secrets and scandals of life in a small town. Stories of the townsfolk are intertwined, but the main narrative revolves around three women: sophisticated Constance MacKenzie; her daughter, aspiring writer Allison, whose illegitimacy is Constance’s most closely guarded secret; and Selena Cross, a working-class girl who murders her lecherous stepfather in self-defense.
In an age of caution and conformity, Metalious’s unconventional views on hypocrisy, sexuality, violence, power, and powerlessness were shocking and disturbing to many. Metalious saw poverty as a social failure rather than an individual one—an uncommon viewpoint for the era. She wrote frankly about sexual abuse at a time when newspapers generally used words no stronger than “molested.” Her daring viewpoints quickly earned her the nickname “Pandora in blue jeans.”
Sensational content aside, Peyton Place struck a powerful chord with women. A decade before Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) and Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl (1962), Metalious wrote about issues that would become central to the feminist cause: rape, abortion, battered women, and sexual freedom. “Rather than showing rape as a male rite of passage,” writes biographer Emily Toth, Metalious showed it “as it appeared to a woman: ugly, violent, a destruction of innocence—and having nothing to do with sexual pleasure.” In Metalious’s vision, abortion could be a life-saving act, and incest was a crime justifiably punished by murder. Her women were sexually desirous beings, in stark contrast to the attitudes commonly established by male writers of the day; like their author, her fictional women refused to be confined by the 1950’s notion of a woman’s place.
Impact
Peyton Place was both a literary blockbuster and a sociological phenomenon. It spawned a sequel, Return to Peyton Place (1959); a feature film (1957); and a long-running television soap opera (1964-1969).
The phrase “Peyton Place” quickly became shorthand for any small town that appeared calm and pretty to outsiders but whose dark secrets spilled out when one scratched the surface. Metalious noted that while these towns appear “peaceful as a postcard,” further examination would unearth oddities and secrets that townspeople clearly were aware of but hoped to keep hidden.
Because of its language and subject matter, the novel was denounced as “literary sewage” and banned from many library shelves; Canada refused to import it. Nonetheless, Peyton Place quickly surpassed Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936) as the top-selling fiction book of all time, holding that distinction for several years and selling millions of copies worldwide. Metalious had the last laugh, famously retorting to her critics, “If I’m a lousy writer, then an awful lot of people have lousy taste.”
Bibliography
Hendler, Jane. Best Sellers and Their Film Adaptations in Postwar America: “From Here to Eternity,” “Sayonara,” “Giant,” “Auntie Mame,” “Peyton Place.” New York: Peter Lang, 2001. Examines the way in which several novels of the 1950’s, including Peyton Place, disrupted commonly held notions of gender identity in both print and filmed forms.
Toth, Emily. Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981. In this poignant biography, Toth writes sympathetically of Metalious: the eccentric, fun-loving friend; haphazard wife and mother; and compulsive writer.