"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, power and powerlessness, truth and hypocrisy, and became known as the Pandora in Blue Jeans.".

Allison MacKenzie looks back on life in the New England town where she grew up around the time of Pearl Harbor.

The last novel to be published before her death, Grace Metalious’s No Adam in Eden explores women’s capacity—or incapacity—to love. At the centre of this story about three generations of women is Angelique de Montigny, the beautiful but spoiled daughter of Armand and Monique. Convinced of her matchless beauty and charm, Angelique proves herself incapable of love, to the detriment of her husband and her children. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

"'I am trapped,' she screamed silently, no one in the room hearing her inner pleas. 'I am trapped in a cage of poverty and mediocrity and If I don't get out I will die.' Only the sound of her typewriter could be heard that night echoing throughout the shack that she had called home. Grace Metalious wrote the stories that no one dared to write before that time. A midcentury tale of small-town life in New England to the hustle and bustle of New York City and to the unforgiving film studios of Hollywood, her story unfolds. Her infamous novel Peyton Place catapulted her from obscurity to the top of the literary world. This is a classic scenario where art imitates life and so does this novel. The young author coping with literary and financial success, without realizing it creates her own Peyton Place where she herself had to reside. The seasons of Grace is a fictional account based on the author's life; sometimes dark, sometimes shocking, but always authentic"--Back cover.

Chronicles the life of American author Kate Chopin and discusses how her novel "The Awakening" was viewed by society when it was first published, why she is considered a feminist, how her personal life influenced her writing, and other related topics.

The continuing story of Peyton Place is once again available in paperback

In this lively account of the writing, publication, and legacy of the 1956 bestselling novel, "Peyton Place," Ardis Cameron tells how the story of a patricide in a small New England village became a cultural phenomenon.

For Annie Barnes, going home to Middle River means dealing with truths long hidden, some of which she buried there herself. But it is a journey she knows she must take if she is to put to rest, once and for all, her misgivings about her mother's recent death. To an outsider, Middle River is a picture-perfect New Hampshire town. But Annie grew up there, and she knows all its secrets -- as did her idol Grace Metalious, author of the infamous novel Peyton Place, which laid a small town's sexual secrets bare for all the world to see. Though Grace actually lived in a nearby town, the residents of Middle River have always believed she used them as the model for her revolutionary novel, and some even insist Annie's grandmother was the model for one of Grace's most scandalous characters. With these rumors and whispers about Peyton Place haunting her childhood, Annie came to identify so closely with the author that it was Grace and her bold rebellion against 1950s conformity that inspired Annie to get out of Middle River and make a life for herself in Washington, D.C. It's been a good life, too. Annie Barnes is now a bestselling author, reaching that level with only her third novel. Success has given her a confidence she never had as a young girl in Middle River -- and it has given the residents of that town something new to worry about. When they hear Annie is returning for a lengthy visit, everyone, including Annie's two sisters, believes she's coming home to write about them. Though amused by the discomfort she causes in Middle River, Annie has no intention of writing a novel about the town or its people. It is her mother's death -- under circumstances that don't quite add up -- that has brought her back, and soon her probing questions start to make people nervous. When she discovers evidence of dangerous pollutants emanating from the local paper mill -- poisons that she comes to believe contributed to her mother's fatal illness -- Annie finds herself at odds with most of the town's inhabitants, including her sisters, both of whom are seemingly unfazed by the incriminating evidence she uncovers. Because the mill is the town's main employer, everyone is afraid of what might happen if Annie digs deeper, and their fears soon start to turn ugly. For Annie, though, there is no turning back, as passion and rage propel her forward in a determined quest. Coming face-to-face with decades of secrets and lies, she knows she must find the strength to move beyond the legacy of Grace Metalious, defying her past to heal the wounds of the town and her own family.

Gilmanton was briefly the most famous town in America. Today the town, nestled amongst the hills of Central New Hampshire and along the curve of the Suncook River, is a microcosm of the changing ways and enduring values of rural life in the twenty-first century. Driving Backwards is a poignant exploration of the vividness of the everyday. Across twenty years of summers, Jessica Lander has come to know Gilmanton and its residents. Valerie, who tends sixtyfive goats,home-schools ten children and crafts artisanal goat cheese. Jim and Cheryl, who raise miniature horses, flocks of chickens and long eared rabbits all on two tiny acres. Duncan, a third generation farmer, who harvests thousands of pound of wild blueberries each year summer. Chuck, who runs a six-generation dairy farm. Lander's guide is David Bickford—a fireman, carpenter, town selectman and nearly one hundred year old storyteller. Through richly observed portraits and elegant prose Lander elevates the ordinary, and encourages a deeper appreciation for the stories that surrounding us. With grace, humor, affection and insight, Driving Backwards blends three hundred years of colorful history with the contemporary lives, seasonal rhythms and varied landscape of modern small-town America.

This true crime history examines the surprising connection between an infamous small-town murder and the bestselling novel it inspired. Born and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, Grace Metalious shocked the nation in 1956 with Peyton Place, her sexually charged debut novel about murder in a small town. It spawned a series of novels, two Hollywood movies, and a long-running television series on ABC. It also made Metalious a pariah in her hometown, where she became tabloid fodder until her untimely death at the age of thirty-nine. Unknown to most readers, the fictional story was inspired by a real crime known as “The Sheep Pen Murder,” which took place in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, in the late 1940s. Now historian Renee Mallett skillfully weaves together the lives of Metalious and Barbara Roberts, the confessed killer behind The Sheep Pen Murder. In The “Peyton Place” Murder, Mallett explores what happens when true crime and literature meet.