Some Gilmanton People Won't Read This
Rabu, 06 Maret 2013
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Soon after we first moved to the Lakes Region about 20 years, we were fortunate to make friends with Esther Peters. Peters, who for many years lived right down the road, was the essence of a "gracious lady," a Philadelphia gal who found a home in the Laconia area; she was also once one of the region's most well-known people because she hosted a series radio programs on WLNH (when it was on the AM dial, at the spot now held by WEMJ). Her understated sense of humor and genuine interest in people meant that Ester got to know a great many people in the Lakes Region, and she interviewed many of them on the radio - including all kinds of visiting famous people, from actors to politicians.
If memory serves right, this famous
picture of Grace Metalious was taken by
a Laconia Citizen photographer.
Esther was also the first person we ever met who knew Grace Metalious, perhaps the area's most famous novelist. Metalious authored "Peyton Place", a fabulously best selling book that revealed the harsh emotions and hypocrisy that lay beneath the civil day-to-day surface of a small New Hampshire town. Many residents of Gilmanton believed the book was a thinly veiled portrait of their community and shun Metalious after the book’s publication.
Ms. Peters regularly had the young author at her home for dinner parties and said Metalious would often fall asleep on a bed after drinking a few glasses of wine. But Esther hated the harsh words of criticism aimed at the Gilmanton novelist, both in her town and in other places in the Lakes Region.
It is now nearly 60 years since "Peyton Place" was first published and this month's issue of New Hampshire magazine features an article about the author, revealing many things you may not know. Last night's broadcast of NHPR's "Word of Mouth" program featured an intriguing interview with the author, George Kelly.... You can find the interview, as well a link to the magazine story here.
Interesting, a theater company in Chicago just presented a play based on "Payton Place".
... And. back in 2006, a story revealed that a biopic of Metalious was being planned... Not sure what happened to it: “Following her turn as Harper Lee in Infamous (the forthcoming second Truman Capote biopic), Sandra Bullock will play another real-life writer. She’s starring in a biopic of Peyton Place author Grace Metalious, whose dirt-dishing novel scandalized her suburban neighbors and ruined her life.”
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