Metalious, Grace

Grace Metalious was an American author who is best known for her scandalous yet highly successful novel, Peyton Place, which shocked Eisenhower-era America with its depiction of the sexual, class, and ethnic tensions roiling beneath the peaceful surface of a small New England mill town.

Financially secure for the first time in her life, Metalious embraced a lavish lifestyle and continued to write, producing three more novels including Return to Peyton Place, The Tight White Collar, and No Adam in Eden. After years of heavy drinking, a troubled Metalious succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver in...