So in 1956 "Peyton Place" was published and we were sixteen years old. And our English teacher

[CTyankee]

asked that we all find a famous quote from the first line of a novel (thinking possibly of "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times&quot BUT...

she didn't count on what my classmate Pat W. came out with:

"Indian summer is like a WOMAN!" she gave it all she had in her deep Alabama accent

Stunned silence.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. I remember when it was on TV 3 nights a week.

I had to leave the room because of the main character a Mother,( Dorthy Malone) having a daughter(Mia Farrow) out of wedlock due to an affair she had had above all things. Pretty risque subject matter in the early 1960's. Ryan O'Neal also was in it.

[Tomconroy]

2. I read the book several years ago. It's well written and I holds

Up pretty well. The publishers insisted that the author describe the sexual abuse as being committed by the step father rather than the father as originally written.

[Jilly_in_VA]

3. One of my friends

had a copy with her in her English class (we were 14 then, freshman year) and the teacher took it away from her and refused to return it at the end of class. She wasn't even reading it at the time, FFS! I went to the teacher after school and asked her for it, telling her it was mine, and she refused to give it to me, telling me it was "unsuitable" for a girl my age to be reading.

I've re-read it in recent years, and it is well-written. People just weren't used to anything even remotely graphic at the time. It's mild by today's standards.

[hedda_foil]

4. If Peyton Place was published today, it would be justifiably classified as literary fiction.