Peyton Place (Hardscrabble Books-Fiction of New England) by Grace Metalious
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Book Reviews of Peyton Place (Hardscrabble Books-Fiction of New England)
Book Review: Exposing the Secrets
Summary: 3 Stars
One weekend in college I wanted to get away from all the stress and went to my spend time with my grandma. My grandfather had recently died and she was lonely. That Friday night we went to the video rental store to pick out a movie. My grandma called me over and pointed to a video on the shelf. Have you ever seen it? She whispered, her tone secretive and embarrassed. No, I hadn't. She went on. The movie had caused quite a stir when it was released in 1967. She hadn't seen it but she wanted to. I was game. It was rated PG, after all. How bad could it be?
We went back to my grandma's apartment and watched "The Graduate".
I felt that same guilty secretive feeling about reading Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. I even contemplated removing the jacket while I was reading it in the orthodontist's waiting room, at Jiffy Lube, and at the podiatrist's. But I didn't. It is 2011, after all.
Grace Metalious was a thirty-something house wife living in New Hampshire when she wrote and published her novel about a small town in New Hampshire in 1956. The novel sold over 60,000 copies in two weeks; rocketed to the New York Time's Best Seller List where it would remain for over a year and shocked a nation. As in, really shocked everyone. It was banned in several states and countries.
Peyton Place dares to expose the secrets that people keep hidden behind the closed curtains and locked doors of their homes (or perhaps even more hidden behind the open curtains and unlocked doors, as one character in the novel believes). Broaching taboo subjects such as incest, spouse-abuse, adultery, abortion, murder and suicide (pretty much covers everything), this book went well beyond the social norms of the 1950's.
I don't believe that "closet skeletons" are exclusive to small towns. But having grown up in a small town, I think it's simply more difficult to keep the skeleton in the closet. Everyone knows everyone. You see each other at the grocery store, church and school. And yet, even in a small town people keep their darkest secrets.
Metalious simply exposed some of these hideous secrets.
The novel follows the lives of two teen aged girls, one from the "shacks" and one from the right side of town, as they go through high school and into young adulthood during the late 1930's and into World War II.
Peyton Place inspired a new genre of literature and we are regularly bombarded with the tough and unpleasant themes discussed in this book, but I have to admit that I was still shocked by Peyton Place in 2011. Metalious was certainly not the first to write about sex, but she writes of sex in a base and carnal way, especially unique to a woman author.
I found the story interesting and several of the themes are universal and still relevant fifty some years later (I've made a list of topics to discuss with my former roommates who are also reading it this month). The plot is well formed. The characters are so believable you would think Metalious was writing from her own experience (perhaps she was). However, I still found the detailed sex scenes just too much--way too much.
Book Review: Starts well but falls apart in Act Three
Summary: 3 Stars
"Peyton Place", a soap opera-esque tale of life in a small town in New England, starts extremely well but is let down by its ending. Grace Metalious does an extremely good job of introducing the audience to her cast of characters, setting up the sub-plots and making the reader feel that he or she is really living in this town, but unfortunately, too many of the sub-plots are left unresolved at the end and those that are, are resolved so quickly that I came away feeling disappointed. For example, after spending 300 pages leading up to the murder of one of the characters, she gets through the resulting trial in one short chapter.
In many ways "Peyton Place" reminded me of Larry McMurtry's "The Last Picture Show", a book about life in a small town in Texas. However, McMurtry has a much better idea of pacing and how to finish a book, and I found his characters to be far more entertaining (the residents of Peyton Place, although interesting, are not fun to spend time with). It is for this reason that I consider "The Last Picture Show" to be one of my favourite books of all time, whereas "Peyton Place" is "just another book" that I have read.
Book Review: Reason for name changes
Summary: 3 Stars
Peyton Place is a fun read although hardly great literature,thus the 3 stars. As a woman author writing a steamy
novel that focused on the inner lives of women, Grace was
well ahead of her time, and I applaud her courage and
outspokenness. But I found the novel overly
sensationalist; she could have made many of her points
without some of the gratuitous kink, particularly
in the life of the Norman character. Anyway, the reason I am
writing in is to explain to a prior reviewer the reason
for the name changes. I am reading "Inside Peyton Place",
Grace Metalious' biography, and apparently Grace
used the names of real people in the town she was
living in (Gilmanton, NH) for some of the PP characters.
One of them named Tom Makris brought a libel suit against
her, and as a result she had to change the name of that
character in the paperback, movie and television
versions of PP.
Book Review: Not at all what I expected, but still a compelling read
Summary: 3 Stars
I was expecting a sweet little novel, especially since I saw Jayne Mansfield reading it in a bathtub in "WIll Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" Instead, it turned out to be a dark book that touched on the subjects of incest, suicide, murder, and deadly gossip, just to name a few. It did keep me interested, so if you don't mind a little gloom, this is a good book for you.Book Review: Absorbing but...terribly written
Summary: 2 Stars
I've read the existing reviews here and, yes, P.P. is a gripping and well-paced soap opera. Yes, it was revolutionary for its era.
But, c'mon people...as writing, it stinks. The ersatz profundity of the opening paragraphs ("Ah, Indian Summer. She is a Lady") is the worst kind of amateur creative-writing exercise. The sex-scene dialogue is so bad I exploded with laughter more than once.
One example. Mike Rossi to Constance:
"Your legs are absolutely wanton! Do you know it?"
Let's keep this "classic" in perspective.