‘Peyton Place’ Lives

To the Editor:

I was pleased to read Leonard Cassuto’s “Beyond Peyton Place” (The Chronicle Review, August 11). That a book once vilified as the epitome of crude and tawdry literary sensationalism is now not only mild in comparison to what came after, but the stuff of which comedy is made — if Desperate Housewives is an exemplar of that genre — speaks to America’s shifting mores as much as it does to the values of those who spoke out against the novel in the late 1950s.

However, Len Cassuto’s commentary also suggests that the novel is worthy of a certain level of scholarly curiosity and engagement. To that point, I am pleased to note that, owing to the efforts of University Press of New England, on whose editorial board I serve, Peyton Place has been reissued as a Northeastern University Press imprint. ...

Stuart Peterfreund Senior Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs School of Professional and Continuing Studies Professor of English Northeastern University Boston

http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 53, Issue 7, Page B22