RORY: It’s a conspiracy.
RICHARD: It’s Peyton Place.
Peyton Place is a 1956 novel by American author Grace Metalious. Set in a small, conservative, gossipy New England town, it deals with hypocrisy and class privilege and has a salacious plot which encompasses incest, abortion, adultery, suicide, and murder. It became an immediate best-seller when it was released.
It was adapted as a film in 1957, becoming the #2 film of 1958. In 1964 it was made into a highly successful television series which ran until 1969, which was when the term “Peyton Place” became used for any scandalous situation. The follow up novel Return to Peyton Place also became a film, and then a soap opera.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 