When a week has flown by with nary a post, there really is no recourse but to plug-in the old standby: a ?mimi-esque? chunks and headlines update.

(And yes, there were chunks, although fortunately for me, they all occurred in the back seat of our cousin?s car as the tummy-challenged troop made the long journey from New Jersey to us.)

LAST THURSDAY EVENING
Our neighbors came over for dinner. (No, not those neighbors.)

At some point the conversation turned to Gilmanton, which is the town where they lived for years before moving to our neck of the woods. You see, Gilmanton is the town where Grace Metalious lived and so there?s really no mentioning it without bringing up Peyton Place. Mrs. Neighbor told us matter-of-factly that Grace Metalious never wrote the book. In fact, it was some other woman in town who wrote it and put Grace up as a front.

Despite the authority with which this ?urban legend? was told to me, I wasn?t buying. But, seeing as I had never read Peyton Place, I didn?t feel I could really comment. So, on Saturday I brought home a copy and read it cover to cover.

It really affected me. Not sure why. I guess I've bandied the phrase ?Peyton Place? around as much as the next person without realizing how any concept I had of the story was some melodramatic, shallow soap opera. Without a doubt, the writing is uneven and it has its fair share of poorly written melodramatic scenes?but there?s also much more to it than I expected.

Did you know that the reason this book ever got to print was due to two women?

As the book was categorically rejected by a series of publishers, it seems highly unlikely it would have ever seen the light of day had Kitty Messner not inherited her husband?s small New York publishing house, Julian Messner. Kitty read the story in one sitting and bought it. Of course then she had the task of getting a reprint house to back her. Again, there were no takers except for Helen Meyer, the director of Dell Publishing.

((NOTE: Still, even a female publisher wouldn't let the original story of a father getting his daughter pregnant and Grace was forced to change it to a step-father-- you listening Woody?))

Do you think these two women responded to an honest look at the struggles women faced in a town where men had all the power? Do you think they resonated with a story that put issues like abortion, incest, illegitimacy, homosexuality, and women who enjoy sex at the center? Although there are good and bad characters on both sides of the gender lines, the book holds a patriarchal society up to the light and yes, no surprise, it?s ugly. Of course, more than fifty years later?when any 10 year old can turn on a television or a computer to see people having sex, it seems quaint. And yet, when a woman?s right to choose to have a safe and legal abortion is under constant and serious attack, it seems incredible that so much of what Metalious underlined with such dark and scathing strokes, is still alive and well in this culture.

Wow. And here I was sitting down to write the cliff notes of my week. Guess not.

Because another piece of the book that was unexpected for me was how the natural world was presented.

?She fancied that the trees were saying, ?Hello, Allison. Hello, Allison,? and she smiled. In one moment of time, precious with a lack of self consiousness, she held her arms wide and called, ?hello! Oh, hello, everything beautiful!?

She ran to the edge of the field and sat down, resting her back against a wide-trunked tree, and then looked back on the field of goldenrod. Slowly, a wonderful feeling of being the only living person in the whole world filled her. Everything was hers, and there was no one to spoil it for her, no one to make anything less peaceful and true and beautiful than it was right at this moment. She sat for a long time not moving, letting the feeling of happiness settle into a comforting warmth in the pit of her stomach, and when she stood up and began to walk through the woods again, she touched the trees and bushes in her passing as if caressing the hands of old friends. At last she came back to the pavement and the wooden board that said Road?s End. She looked down at the town, the feeling of joy beginning to dissolve within her. She whirled around, away from the town trying to recapture the sensation that was so warm, so lovely, but it would not come back. She felt heavy, as if she suddenly weighed two hundred pounds, and as tired as if she had been running for hours. She turned and started down the hill toward Peyton Place.?

Anyway?I?m not recommending it. I?m just saying, wow, what ovaries all three of them had to get it published and how sad, that even today, people in the town would dismiss Grace as merely a drunk and that no way could she have ever written that book. Crazy, non?

LET THERE BE DUMPLINGS
So, our cousins were up for the long weekend. I covered the dining room table with art supplies and the girls were amused for days upon days?which was good.

T?s favorite food in the world? Dumplings. This past weekend he got a tutorial on how to make the real thing and boy howdy?were they good. And? I believe there are great, nay a vast number of homemade dumplings in my future.

We are off again this weekend for graduation, birthday parties, etc?must be June.

I?ll be back because I have a whole NOTHER book to tell you about--and yes, I?m looking at you Miss Doves.

a la prochaine

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