Peyton Place (novel)

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Cover of the Modern Classics edition of the novel and its sequel

Peyton Place is a 1956 novel by Grace Metalious. Selling sixty thousand copies within the first ten days of its release, it was publishing's second "blockbuster," (the first was Gone with the Wind in 1936) and remained on the New York Times best seller list for fifty-nine weeks. The main plot follows the lives of three women - lonely and repressed Constance Mackenzie, her illegitimate daughter Allison, and her employee Selena Cross, a girl from "across the tracks" - and how they come to terms with their identity as women and sexual beings in a small New England town. Hypocrisy, social inequities, and class privilege are recurring themes in a tale that includes incest, abortion, adultery, lust, and murder. Peyton Place became a common catchphrase to describe any place known for its sordid atmosphere or nefarious doings. The book and the movie that would follow receive mention in Billy Joel's 1989 hit, "We Didn't Start The Fire."

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Peyton Place follows the story of Allison MacKenzie, a teenager with dreams of becoming a successful novelist, and her mother Constance "Connie" MacKenzie. Connie has been harboring for years the secret that Allison was born illegitimate from an affair Connie had with a married businessman, and her greatest fear is that Allison may find out the truth about her parentage. Allison's best friend is Selena Cross, who has been sexually and physically abused by her stepfather Lucas.

The story basically follows the lives of both Connie and Allison and the various characters that interact with them. Connie becomes involved with a handsome newcomer in town, high school principal Michael Rossi (originally called Tomas Makris in the original printing of the novel but changed for legal reasons for later printings, when it was revealed that Grace Metalious used the name of an acquaintance without permission). Initially Connie and Michael clash but eventually fall in love.

Allison is attracted to Rodney Harrington, the only son of the richest man in town. However, Rodney becomes involved with "good-time girl" Betty Anderson, who becomes pregnant by him; Rodney is eventually killed in a car crash. Selena becomes involved with Ted Carter, but tragedy strikes her: she is raped multiple times by her stepfather Lucas and eventually becomes pregnant. Her mother, Nellie Cross, eventually commits suicide in the MacKenzie house, and her body is discovered by Allison, traumatizing her. Though it was illegal, the town physician Matthew Swain gives her an abortion. To hide their crimes, Selena also has her appendix removed, which explained away her time in the hospital. The doctor then forces Lucas to leave town by threatening to reveal the crimes he has committed. When Lucas attempts to attack Selena again, upon his return to Peyton Place after a stint in the Navy, she kills him and her brother helps her bury the body in the sheep pen. When the townspeople discover that Lucas had shown up in town (he hitched a ride from someone) yet no one saw him, they look into finding where he went. Selena is tried for murder when they discover what happened. She tries to hide the secret of becoming pregnant by her stepfather and aborting her baby, but eventually Dr. Swain testifies on her behalf about the abuse and the abortion, and Selena is acquitted. However, her boyfriend Ted breaks it off with her because the controversy would interfere with his legal career.

Other peripheral characters include Norman Page, a timid young man who is controlled by his extremely possessive mother; Kenny Stearns, school custodian and town drunk who goes off on a six-week bender; Charles Partridge, a successful lawyer, and his gossipy wife, Marion; and Seth Buswell, newspaper editor and town cynic.

Eventually, Allison writes a book about how the town was founded called "Samuel's Castle", though it was written while she was in New York. It was not published, because her agent left her, telling her it was junk, after he seduced her and took her virginity. A sequel, Return to Peyton Place, was published in 1959, and followed the lives of Allison, Connie and Selena and what happens to them after the situations in the first book.

[edit] Controversy

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Contrary to popular belief, the "real" Peyton Place is not Gilmanton, New Hampshire, where Grace Metalious lived when she wrote the novel. The town in the novel is much larger than Gilmanton, which to this day does not have a high school or even a main street. Peyton Place is a fictional composite of the nearby towns of Laconia, New Hampshire (where Grace did most of her drinking), Belmont, Gilmanton and other nearby villages.

Several characters and events were drawn from events in nearby towns and people Metalious actually knew. For example, Selena Cross was based on Jane Glenn, a 20-year-old girl from Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire, who murdered her father after years of sexual abuse and buried his body under a goat pen. (In the novel, Selena kills her stepfather -- full-on incest was considered too taboo for audiences. In Metalious' original manuscript it was Selena's father; her editor Kitty Messner made the change, much to Grace's dismay and disapproval.) Another controversial character was the salacious school principal Tomas Makris, who bore the name and physical description of a Laconia resident and co-worker of Metalious's school teacher husband. Makris sued for libel, winning an out-of-court settlement for $60,000. It was eventually revealed that Metalious had forged Makris's name on a release form, and the character was renamed "Michael Rossi" for the film and television adaptations of the novel.

Some citizens of the Lakes Region took umbrage at the notoriety that was quickly thrust upon the area, and directed their resentment at Metalious. Vicious rumors began circulating about the author, some true (Metalious had an affair), and some preposterous (she bought groceries while wearing a fur coat and nothing underneath). Metalious later tried to cash in on her success when she helped buy a motel on Lake Winnipesaukee that was re-christened the Peyton Place Motel, but it was an unsuccessful venture. Decades after the publication of the novel and the death of its author, many in Metalious' former hometown have forgotten the controversy, but the topic of Peyton Place still raises the ire of some.[1] In the 1970s and 80s younger residents of Gilmanton eagerly embraced Grace's legacy and tried to tweak older residents by throwing occasional anniversary parties, but even that tradition seems to have waned. For years an anonymous resident used to leave flowers at Grace's gravesite. It is not clear whether this tradition has continued.^{[citation needed]}

Despite the controversy and social commentary present in the novel, Metalious insisted that Peyton Place was a work of fiction. When John Michael Hayes, the screenwriter for the film adaptation of Peyton Place, asked her if the novel was her autobiography, Metalious asked him to repeat the question and then spilled her drink on him.