Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

Bodice Tipplers

Today we have a special treat for you - we got Henry from FireStarters to read Grace Metalious' Peyton Place with us and let me tell you... it's a real Peyton Place in there.

I honestly can't even describe the plot of this book so let me just give you the trigger warnings, I guess? So this book is trying really hard to shock you, which shouldn't shock you - the stuff that isn't intentional in it, therefore, is... more shocking? So on that front look out for rampant 1950's racism that thinks it's progressive including whoa n-word count and awful depictions of mental illness, including a character who dies by suicide. The stuff you're here for, though - the Peyton Place stuff - includes but probably is not limited to because my god: incestuous rape and abuse, secret illegal abortion(s), an industrial carnival accident, a cat strangled in absolutely bizarre circumstances (I mean seriously usually I'm the one freaked out by animal cruelty but the dead cat barely registers it's like that), suicide by hanging, a hard ravishing, and oh yeah a murder.

FireStarters is a podcast dedicated to discussing all the cultural references in Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire", and therefore they already did an episode on Peyton Place - but they only watched the movie! Henry had no idea what he was in for.