Probably my all-time favorite "guilty pleasure". Wonderful book!

From an Amazon.com review:

What a wonderful book about small town America in the early 40's. The characters in this book are very well developed, so that you almost feel you are living in the town with them. The people from the good side and the bad side of town. The two most dislikeable characters in town are of course from entirely different sides. The richest man in town who is a greedy man born into family money, with no feelings for other people except for what they can give him. In this era it was entirely possible to manipulate workers in your factory to do your bidding because you could fire people for any reason whatsoever back then. And Rodney Harrington does just that. He raises his son to be even worse than himself, with no regard for anyone except himself and what others can bring to him or give to him.
And Lucas Cross, from the poorest part of town, who drinks, beats his wife and children, and even worse. These characters are painted well, and you will despise both for what they are. There is the kindly doctor, the newspaper editor, the spinster schoolteacher, the crazy old lady and her cat, the busybodies, and more.

While not particularly shocking in this day and age, in the late 40's the small town issues that are addressed out in the open in this novel were strictly taboo to discuss at the time. Constance and her carefully orchestrated lie about her past. Poor Norman, who you know will never escape the clingy, desperate clutches of his mother. Selena, who bears more than her share of tragedy with dignity. Ted, who in the end lost his honor but was not even aware of it, becoming a replica of his own deceitful parents.
And Allison, who the book follows most closely. She is the Daughter of Constance, and the story starts with her just entering high school and follows her through graduation and moving to New York for a brief period of time.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, it seemed to pull me into the story of the town and kept me there by peeling back the layers of the town a little bit at a time. Not an action packed book, but certainly not boring. You will find yourself becoming involved in the characters lives, and by the talent of good author you will either care a great deal about them or hate their guts.

Bookray

This is a replacement bookray for my original copy that is lost in the mail. For prior entries see this JE.

If you are interested in joining this bookray, please PM me. Bookray will remain open until last person has the book.

Participants:

. Bug2004 from Nebraska, USA (USA preferred)
. Bulfinch from Arizona, USA (USA only)
. HallieK from Texas, USA (USA/Canada preferred - will ship internationally)<----Asked to be skipped
. Bookworm-lady from Spain (Europe/UK only)
. ritao from Finland (Europe preferred - will ship internationally - moved down the list)

Note: Order is subject to change based on shipping preferences and others joining the bookray.

How the bookray works:
* Someone will PM you for your address, PM them back and provide your address
* When you receive the book, please make a journal entry letting everyone know that you received it
* Put the book at the top of your TBR pile (under other rings/rays that arrived first)
* Read the book (take your time and enjoy the book, but remember others are waiting!)
* When the end is in sight, check the book's journal and PM the next person to get their address
* Finish the book, make another journal entry and let everyone know what you thought of the book
* Send the book to the next person on the list (please use the cheapest shipping method available), make release notes (Controlled Release) or journal entry to let everyone know that it's in the mail

Please feel free to PM me at any time with questions

Bookray is now completed. Thanks everyone for participating!

RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to Bug2004 to restart this bookray.
Enjoy!

Re'cvd today. Will read asap. Thanks!!!

I really enjoyed this one. It had a cozy feel...I could really picture the town and the characters. My mom read this when she was young, so it was fun to chat about it while I was reading it. Thanks for sharing!!!

I will send off as soon as I get Bulfinch's address.

Sorry for the delay...mailed off Friday, 4/4.

Received in the mail this week. I'll start on it as soon as I finish my current book!

I have wanted to read this for a long time, because of all the references that I hear to it. I found it to be an enjoyable read, not only for the story itself... but this copy of the book appeared to be a vintage paperback... with a 50 cents cover price if you can believe it! Even more fun, the original cash register receipt was tucked inside the book! (The original purchaser paid a whopping 1 cent sales tax!)

After reading the book, I watched the film (which apparently had 9 Oscar nominations!). I was surprised at how much they strayed from the book itself... and also how much they sanitized the details of the story for the film version! I also learned that the book was also adapted into an actual television show in the 60s!

Definitely, I can see the historical import of the book... as the topics covered in the book were quite shocking at the time of its publish!

Thanks Perryfran, for keeping the book ray going!

I will send the book on its way as soon as I can contact the next willing participant!

Just dropped in the mail to Bookworm-lady as HallieK asked to be skipped, and I received no response from ritao.

Enjoy!

I picked it up from the post office last Friday!
Thanks, Bulfinch, for sending it on...
And thanks, Perryfran, for sharing it! (I love the movie poster on your post!)

Currently reading it.
I will ask for Ritao's address.
Thanks for sharing, Perryfran!
Eva

This is a great novel, a one-off, and must have caused a great scandal when first published.
I believe Ms Metalious never wrote any other novel (what a shame!) and died quite tragically.
(By the way, the back cover photo is a document in itself...)
Very credible characters, and a claustrophobic small-town setting.

I watched both the 50's film (featuring Lana Turner) and the 60's TV series, which was re-run in the 70s. A very young long-haired Mia Farrow played Alison Mackenzie (I used to find that name fascinating!), while Ryan O'Neal played a sanitized Rodney Harrington. In this version for TV, the whole Cross family was wiped out (a major point of interest in the novel), while Rodney and Norman were brothers.

Thanks for the chance to re-read this novel, Perryfran; I have finally managed to find Ritao, and the book will soon be on its way to Finland.

Eva

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent last evening to Ritao, in Finland...
Enjoy!
Eva

Got the book on Thursday, and will start reading it ASAP. Thank you very much, perryfran and muchas gracias, Bookworm-lady! :)

Very interesting book indeed, the characters are depicted so well that you automatically get a vivid picture of the happenings in the small town Peyton Place. I have to agree that the novel must have caused quite a sensation in the 50s, and I think that for example the movie American Beauty and the TV show Desperate Housewives owe a lot to this classic story of the characters behind a typical, picturesque American small town.

Sorry for the late journal entry, I forgot completely about journaling the book once I had finished it, with the holidays coming up and all. Thank you perryfran for the ray, and happy new year to everyone involved in it!

The book found a new reader in Germany, so I'm sending it there. Happy reading!

The book arrived at the "Packstation" on Saturday morning and I've just picked it up during lunch break. It's from the first Dell paperback printing in September 1957 - one of 12 million paperbacks that were sold in addition to the 20 million hardcover copies. According to Wikipedia, the book stayed on The New York Times bestseller lists for more than a year: 59 weeks.

Thanks for the exchange (Fear of Flying). My philatelic colleague likes the many beautiful stamps (pic). Have to admit to a case of sticker shock: while German postage for sending a comparably big/heavy book to Finland is just 3.70 EUR, the Finnish postage amounts to no less than 13.40 EUR =:-<

WOW - what a book. For decades, I only knew it from the lyrics of Tom T. Hall's "Harper Valley PTA". Surfing the Internet researching facts for this mini-review, I learned that the Storyteller not just wrote songs, but also some books - meaning that my wishlist is going to grow some. Another link to the work of Tom T. Hall is that, surprisingly, the names "Clayton" (first name of a Peyton Place local character) and "Delaney" (name of a reporter who came to town to attend a trial) appear in the same line - maybe sparking the fictional name of the real-life hero of "The Year That Clayton Delaney Died".

The book was hard to put down, the characters were all very interesting (though most are unlikeable and some even to be abhorred) and the plot twists and turns with many surprises that make for a gripping read. As previous reviewers already wrote, the main characters are finely described and developed, their reasoning, why they can/should/must behave as they did, is clearly set out.

Whether it's a small town or any other close-knit community (a peer group of professionals, for example), the same basic human character traits will be at work. Since this does not (or only very slightly) change over time (except that what was a no-no in the 1940s might be acceptable today - and vice versa, think children born out of wedlock, think cigarettes!), the book is timeless.

Quotable Quotes
• She looked up at the sky with its deep blueness peculiar to Indian summer and it seemed like a vast cup inverted over her alone. (p. 23)
• Love, to Constance, was synonymous with marriage, and marriage was something based on a community of tastes and interests, together with a similarity of backgroud and viewpoint. All these were blended together by an emotion called "love", and sex did not enter into it at all. (p. 167)
• The real reason that she disliked him was that she could not intimidate him. When she used tactics on him which would have reduced her husband to an acquiescent lump, Mike merely laughed - at her. (p. 249)
• If every man [...] ceased to hate and blame every other man for his own failures and shortcomings, we would see the end of every evil in the world, from war to backbiting. (p. 391)

This book is on Croquignolle's wishlist and will move on in its transcontinental journey with a stop in Switzerland. The pic shows a typical landscape in "Franconian Switzerland", the area where I live.

It gives me a lot of pleasure to be able to send her this book as a "thank you" for her RABCK ( "06H41" some ten months ago) which used to be on my wishlist.

Thanks Litrajunkie ! Peyton Place arrived safely in the Swiss Alps. Looking forwards to reading it.

03.10.2017 : It's almost impossible to read in english at the moment. Too tired to be able to spent a good time reading. I'll give it to other bookcrossers soon.

Bonjour ! Vous venez de retrouver un livre voyageur...

Ici vous pourrez indiquer :
- l’endroit où vous avez trouvé ce livre
- si vous l'avez lu, la note que vous lui donneriez, vos impressions de lecture,
- et ce que vous comptez faire de lui (le donner à quelqu’un, le libérer dans un lieu public...à vous de choisir !).

En vous inscrivant sur le site du Bookcrossing (gratuit et anonyme), vous pourrez être prévenu par message électronique dès que le livre sera à nouveau trouvé et commenté.

Bienvenue dans le monde des livres en liberté ! :-)