![]() ![]() ![]() It is a place where men can do little wrong, but women must be vigilant about preserving their reputations. Metalious’ ``Peyton Place″ is roiling with hypocrisy, spite and distrust. It discusses incest, sexual abuse and women’s sexual desire at a time when conventional wisdom held that sexual predators were strangers, bad girls ``asked for it″ and good girls didn’t. ``Peyton Place″ focuses on the lives of three women in a small New Hampshire town on the Connecticut River. She enjoyed the book so much that she began using it in a course she taught.Īfter having trouble finding copies for her course, she successfully lobbied the Northeastern University Press to rerelease the out-of-print book this year in celebration of what would have been Metalious’ 75th birthday. ![]() She was surprised to find a scathing commentary of small-town New England life. ``People read this book in secret,″ said Cameron, a professor of American and New England studies at the University of Southern Maine.Ĭameron, 50, finally read ``Peyton Place″ eight years ago. Libraries, bookstores and even some cities banned it. The book was so controversial at the time that teens had to sneak a read. ![]() Four decades later, Ardis Cameron thinks people should take a fresh look at the cultural relevance of the book that offended American sensibilities and rocked New England’s Puritanical reputation. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |