Peyton Place? Where Is That?

While I was growing up in a small town, I heard it sometimes compared to "Peyton Place," often leaving me to wonder where exactly it was located, and what it represented. I'm not sure how or where along the line I learned about Peyton Place, and it wasn't in complimentary terms either about the small town or its residents. Wikipedia tells me the bestselling novel Peyton Place was published in 1956, making the event before my time, at least my time for remembering it. I've never read the novel, and I probably never will.

Which brings me to the present time as I was revising one of my novels-in-progress. My editor's eye caught my use of "Peyton Place," and I wondered if my readers would know what I was referring to. Given the context, they probably could reasonably guess at the meaning I was trying to convey. Of course, there is always Google easily accessed on web-enabled smart phones to look up Peyton Place. I'm the curious sort who is always looking stuff up online. Anyway, I decided to leave the Peyton Place reference in my novel because my readers group is in the age 50+ category, and they would probably know what it means.