Inside Peyton Place

"In September 1956 Peyton Place burst onto the American scene as the most controversial novel of the century. Its publication was also an extraordinary story of personal triumph. Grace Metalious (1924-1964), an unpretentious housewife from the wrong side of the tracks, had written an explosive bestseller. From a ramshackle cottage in a small New England milltown she zoomed to national stardom. This was a Cinderella dream. But it did not last.". "Grace refused to be confined by the fifties' notion of a woman's place. In her struggle to find herself, she lifted the lid off sex and violence,…