Peyton Plcce by Grace Metalious -- a review by Eleanore Vance

Content Warning: This book contains situations of sexual assault, sexual shaming, sexual abuse of a minor, parental abuse of a minor, racial slurs, abortion, alcoholism, and drunk driving. Bear this in mind should you pick up a copy from your local library 

Beginning in a New England "Indian summer," we are introduced to the isolated community of Peyton Place. Its school teachers, drunks, merchants, business moguls and its one doctor. There are three nuclei to this story, and they are all interconnected.

They are "widow" Constance MacKenzie, her daughter Allison, and Allison's school friend, Selina Cross. Each woman's story and arc is different, yet they weave and intersect with each other and the larger story of the town.

Constance Mackenzie owns Thrifty Threads, a discount clothing store. Her reputation in town is solid as a block of ice, but all that could melt away if anyone found out the truth about her and Allison's past. She has painstakingly curated a wall around herself, and it has protected her. But it is beginning to chafe.

Allison MacKenzie is a budding writer, named for her deceased father. Her arc is more what we would consider a typical coming of age story with first jobs and first kisses and such. Sometimes she is relatable, others she's a pretentious little bitch.

Selina Cross's story is just plain tragic.  Like, isn't it bad enough that she's the poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks? Her character brings to mind the old Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons song "Rag Doll." Her arc, though... a big part of that was ripped right out of the headlines of the time.

Reading this book today kind of feels like opening a time capsule. One is removed to a time before health insurance (Doc fixes you up and worries about the money later), before seat belts and drunk driving laws, before Roe v. Wade. With the recent forced-birth  laws in Texas, books like this become even more important.

I am told by several people who are better read than I am that Peyton Place is little more than well written trash, and given that the majority of the book amounts to the gossip mill of a small New England town; I can't argue the point. Yet this book has been cited as the inspiration for works like Stephen King's It and Salem's Lot. It is mentioned in Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire," and in Jeannie C. Riley's "Harper Valley PTA." So why has no one in my generation read it? 

I mean I kind of get why it isn't on high school reading lists, but why isn't it on collegiate lists, or other reccomended-reading lists?! Even with the language, I really don't feel that there is anything much worse here than can be found in any given Agatha Christie.  This book, in my opinion, is culturally significant, and more people need to know just how ahead of her time Grace Metallious was. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐4/5