Book One of Peyton Place opens in 1937. With the introduction of the small New Hampshire town and its characters, the social strata are clearly defined. Most noted among the well-to-do are Leslie Harrington, owner of the mill, and his spoiled son Rodney, the good-hearted doctor Matthew Swain, and upstanding Seth Buswell, owner of the newspaper. The town's middle class is represented by the book's two main characters, Constance MacKenzie and her daughter Allison. The impoverished of the town are represented by Selena Cross and her family. The town is a character itself, a seductively beautiful facade that hides a plethora of ills.

Book One gives a hint of these ills. Constance, who gave birth to Allison in New York after an affair with a married man and then returned to Peyton Place pretending to be a widow, lives in fear that the truth of Allison's illegitimacy will come out. Allison, who has few friends, dreams alternately about her wonderful father and about being a famous writer. Meanwhile, Peyton Place's power elite gather to discuss ways of manipulating zoning laws to rid the town of tar-paper shacks. And Lucas Cross, owner of one such shack, is abusive toward his step-daughter Selena.

Allison, who is desperate for a friend, grows close to Selena, who is equally desperate to escape Lucas and poverty. But the two girls have many differences. While Allison wants Selena to share her love of bucolic little spots like Road's End, Selena wants only to spend time at Allison's mother's dress shop and, increasingly, to talk with boys. Moreover, when Allison finally gets a look inside the shack where Selena lives, she is horrified by the squalor and the violence she sees in Lucas.

Eventually, Allison and Selena grow distant because of Selena's closeness with Ted Carter. At the same time, a new high school principal arrives to catch the eye of Allison's mother, Constance, and to dredge up forbidden thoughts.

Book Two picks up two years later. Allison and Norman have become good friends, despite town gossip about Norman's perverted relationship with his mother. Selena has been impregnated by her step-father Lucas and, terrified, goes to the good doctor, Matthew Swain. Compassionate to the core and resentful of the town's blind eye, Doc Swain performs an abortion masked as an appendectomy. He then pays a visit to Lucas, forces him to sign a confession about his abuse of Selena, and makes him leave town.

Selena and Ted Carter are in love and plan to marry. His parents, who scammed their own way out of poverty and want no looking back, are outraged. But Ted is adamant, coddling Selena during her recovery from her 'appendectomy.'

Tomas Makris wants to marry Constance, but she resists. She fears his learning the truth about Allison's illegitimacy, fears word getting out, fears being the talk of the town. She is also grappling with her physical attraction to Tom. He demands the truth from her, which means communicating her physical desires and admitting to the sexual pleasure she feels.

Rodney Harrington impregnates the town tease, Betty Anderson. Leslie Harrington buys off Betty's father, and Betty leaves town.

Allison spends more and more time with Norman. Constance worries that history will repeat itself, that Allison will do something 'bad' and a scandal will ensue. Allison and Constance argue about this. In dire panic, Constance blurts out the truth of Allison's parentage. Upon learning it, Tom is wonderfully understanding, but Allison is crushed. She and her mother become estranged.

Four years pass, and Book Three begins. The year is 1943. Norman Page, dishonorably discharged from the army for cracking under fire in France, returns a hero, thanks to his mother's decorating his uniform with medals and ribbons. Rodney Harrington, all the more reckless for not going to war, dies after crashing his car while fondling his date's breasts. Kenny Stearns falls down drunk in the aisle of the Pentecostal Church, babbling in a way the parishioners think to be holy, and is subsequently ordained as a minister of the sect.

Meanwhile, Lucas Cross has gone missing. His body is found buried in the sheep pen of the tar-paper shack where Selena and her little brother now live alone. Selena is tried for murder. Allison, smarting from a disastrous affair with her literary agent, returns from New York for the trial. Breaking a promise to Selena but needing to prick a small town's conscience, Doc Swain testifies to the abortion and the abuse Selena suffered at Lucas's hands. Selena is acquitted and released. But Ted, on learning the truth, decides that Selena's past would hurt his prospects as a lawyer. He breaks up with her.

Tom Makris is instrumental in helping Allison see the similarities between her affair with her agent and her mother's affair with her father. Allison and Constance reconcile. Finally, Allison recaptures a sense of peace at Road's End, her favorite spot in Peyton Place.

Excerpts from the Introduction to Peyton Place:

'... Peyton Place follows the lives of three women who, in different ways and for different reasons, come to terms with their identity as women and as sexual persons in the repressive atmosphere of small-town America.'

'By reinterpreting incest, wife beating, and poverty as signs of social as well as individual failure, Metalious turned "trash" into a powerful political commentary on gender relations and class privilege.'

'Metalious presents a story located in the uneven and problematic nooks and crannies of working women's lives: the terrain of female longing and desire, of escape and dreams deferred.'

Source: Metalious, Grace. Peyton Place, Boston: Northeastern University Press. © 1999. From the introduction by Ardis Cameron.