Return to Peyton Place cover

Return to Peyton Place

by Grace Metalious

In 1956, Grace Metalious published Peyton Place , the novel that unbuttoned the straitlaced New England of the popular imagination, transformed the publishing industry, topped the bestseller lists for more than a year, and made its young author one of the most talked-about people in America. In 1959, the sizzling sequel, Return to Peyton Place , picked up where Peyton Place left off: Allison MacKenzie, now the author of America's No. 1 bestseller, is thrown into the glamorous whirl of the smart set of New York and Hollywood. At home, the rest of the most controversial characters in 1950s American fiction continue to create a stir in this ongoing expose of sex, hypocrisy, social inequity, and class privilege in contemporary America. Peyton Place, the small, seemingly respectable New England town, is revealed as a vividly realistic cauldron of secrets and scandal.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?