Return to Grace Metalious

F.J. SYPHER

[ race Metalious's famous novel, Peyton Place (1956),
^enjoyed such immense popular success that its title has
passed into the English language as a byword for a small
town full of undercover scandal. Of the paperback edition alone,
twelve million copies were printed, and the book was followed by
a successful motion picture (1957) starring Lana Turner and
Diane Varsi as Constance and Allison MacKenzie, and Hope
Lange as Selena Cross. Eventually the story became a television
serial (1964-1969), with Mia Farrow as Allison MacKenzie. The
sequel to the book, Return to Peyton Place (1959), sold four million
copies in paperback and was also made into a film (1961). Many
critics have dismissed Metalious's books as merely sensational; I
suggest, however, that her work deserves to receive more sympa¬
thetic critical attention.

The main reason Grace Metalious's work has been misunder¬
stood is that the book that brought her fame, Peyton Place, was
deliberately, aggressively, and successfully marketed as a sensa¬
tional novel with daring sex scenes and scandalous revelations.
The blurb on the cover of the Dell paperback advertises it as:
"The explosive best seller that lifts the lid off a respectable New
England town." The artwork shows a small, typically suburban
train station glowing peacefully in the dark—an icon of the
warmth and coziness of a country town to which one might com¬
mute home in the evening.

It has been said that the most insidious misrepresentations
twist, rather than deny, the truth. The fame of Peyton Place is an
apposite example. There are indeed sex scenes that were daring at
the time. Peyton Place was banned in a number of American towns,
and Canada prohibited importation of copies. The book also
includes ugly situations—such as Selena Cross's rape by Lucas
Cross, her drunkard stepfather; her illegal abortion performed,
out of sympathy for the victim, by the wise country physician. Dr.
Swain, and recorded as an appendectomy; and Selena's murder of