Unbuttoning America : a biography of "Peyton Place" / Ardis Cameron.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cameron, Ardis, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Metalious, Grace. Peyton Place.

Metalious, Grace.

Popular literature--United States--History and criticism.

Popular literature.

Literature and society--United States--History--20th century.

Literature and society.

Books and reading--United States--History--20th century.

Books and reading.

Sex in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (240 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Published in 1956, Peyton Place became a bestseller and a literary phenomenon. A lurid and gripping story of murder, incest, female desire, and social injustice, it was consumed as avidly by readers as it was condemned by critics and the clergy. Its author, Grace Metalious, a housewife who grew up in poverty in a New Hampshire mill town and had aspired to be a writer from childhood, loosely based the novel's setting, characters, and incidents on real-life places, people, and events. The novel sold more than 30 million copies in hardcover and paperback, and it was adapted into a hit Hollywood film in 1957 and a popular television series that aired from 1964 to 1969. More than half a century later, the term "Peyton Place" is still in circulation as a code for a community harboring sordid secrets.In Unbuttoning America, Ardis Cameron mines extensive interviews, fan letters, and archival materials including contemporary cartoons and cover images from film posters and foreign editions to tell how the story of a patricide in a small New England village circulated over time and became a cultural phenomenon. She argues that Peyton Place, with its frank discussions of poverty, sexuality, class and ethnic discrimination, and small-town hypocrisy, was more than a tawdry potboiler. Metalious's depiction of how her three central female characters come to terms with their identity as women and sexual beings anticipated second-wave feminism. More broadly, Cameron asserts, the novel was also part of a larger postwar struggle over belonging and recognition. Fictionalizing contemporary realities, Metalious pushed to the surface the hidden talk and secret rebellions of a generation no longer willing to ignore the disparities and domestic constraints of Cold War America.

Contents:

Introduction : small talk

The novel truth

The sheep pen murder

Scenes of writing

The other side of writing

The gendered eye

Sex talk

The women of Peyton Place

Excitable fictions

Epilogue : memento mori.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780801456091

0801456096

9780801456107

080145610X

OCLC:

1080550796