10 Peyton Place Questions | Authors Trivia Quiz

Answer: New Hampshire

Grace Metalious spent her entire life living in this state. She died in 1964 and is buried in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

Answer: Selena Cross

Selena lives in a one-roomed tar-paper shack with her mother, stepfather and younger brother. Allison lives in a well furnished, comfortable "Cape Cod" with her mother, a business woman who employs Selena in her store and has Selena's mother clean house for her.

Jo March features in "Little Women", Jennifer North in "The Valley of the Dolls" and Clarissa Dalloway is the title character in Virginia Woolf's classic.

Answer: 1 year

Allison is actually a whole year older than she thinks. She was born illegitimately and her mother, Constance, desperate to cover this up, kept Allison's birth secret from the prying eyes of Peyton Place. Constance lived in New York as the mistress of a married man who already had a family in Scarsdale.

He died when Allison was three years old, leaving Constance and her daughter well provided for. Constance returned to Peyton Place, declared her daughter to be a year younger, and settled down to run a fashionable clothing store.

Answer: Leslie Harrington

Leslie Harrington is a widowed man whose wife died during the birth of his only son, Rodney. Harrington is portrayed as a selfish man whose overwhelming desire and need to win comes second only to his love for his son. Cotton mills in small towns often provided the only real source of emploment for the townspeople.

Matthew Swain is the shrewd but kindly doctor, Seth Buswell owns the town newspaper, the "Peyton Place Times", and Clayton Frazier is one of the more colourful town characters with an opinion on everything.

Answer: Rodney Harrington

Rodney, the spoilt son of Leslie Harrington, really wanted to ask Betty Anderson. However Betty is the daughter of one of Harrington's mill hands so his father insists that Rodney take a "nice girl". Rodney takes Allison McKenzie, only to abandon her in the school hall to spend the entire evening with Betty in the parking lot.

Norman Page is the sensitive only child of a clinging mother. He is Allison's friend with whom she once believed herself to be in love. Joey is Selena's brother and Ted is Selena's boyfriend.

Answer: Chestnut Street

Ironically the houses on Chestnut rarely have children in them, a fact that was commented on by the poorer townsfolk who often lived with many children in cramped tar-paper shacks.

Ash Street is where Betty Anderson lives. Allison and her mother live on Beech whilst Elm Street is the main thoroughfare.

Answer: A fickle woman

The opening sequence of Peyton Place is typical of the boldness of the author and her confidence in drawing analogy using sexual innuendo, known only in works by male writers thus far (1956). Grace uses expressions like "ripe" and "hotly passionate" to decribe the fickleness of the woman that she sees as Indian summer.

Answer: $250

When Leslie hears the news from his son, he tells him that he will see to it. He writes a cheque for $500 which he gives to Betty's father for an abortion. When Betty hears of this she rips it up in front of Harrington. He replaces it with another for $250 with the warning that if she comes back again he will halve it again.

Answer: An author

Allison loves the written word and would read anything that she could find with a thirst that is hard to quench. Her first serious effort at writing was a short story whch she entered in a magazine competition and won first prize.

Grace Metalious had the same thirst and it is easy to see the similarity between herself and the way in which she portrays the young Allison.

Answer: Tomas Makris

Tom teaches Connie to overcome the shame of being an unmarried mother and to learn to be honest and unafraid. The character of Makris had to be changed to Mike Rossi in the sequel to Peyton Place following the discovery that the name Tom Makris belonged to a real person who had not given permission for its use.