Sunday, March 12, 2006

What about "Peyton Place"




Peyton Place, the novel, which has sold more than ten million copies since its publication in 1956 and is still in print will turn 50 years

In 1956, a woman from middle class Manchester, New Hampshire wrote a book that shocked the nation. At 32 years old, Grace Metalious wrote the blockbuster novel Peyton Place.... Metalious wrote about incest, abortion, sex, rape, adultery, repression, lust, and the secrets of small town New England, things that were never discussed before in conservative America.... When Metalious published Peyton Place, the country was in the grasp of a new wave of sexual panic.... The avant-garde disturbed the country and critics called the book “wicked,” “sordid,” and “cheap.”... To read Peyton Place was to read it in secret and were sometimes discussed only among the closest of friends.... In 1956, a sexual act such as sodomy, oral sex, and intercourse with another married person in most states was illegal. Also, abortion was illegal, and birth control was unreliable and in many cases, difficult to find.

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Peyton Place had a big impact on American society. The novel changed the way people viewed poverty, sexual abuse, and sex. Before, the performance of women during sex was more like a “grin and bear it” situation. It opened many new doors and gave a push for the sexual revolution and feminist movement. She introduced the issues of poverty, bigotry, the town drunk, and the town bully, underpaid teachers, and sexually repressed girls and boys.

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