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No Adam in Eden
So who needs an Adam in Eden?
Angelique was small, blondem passionate--and as capable of love as a hooded cobra. She learned sexual blackmail at her mother's knee, and before she was through she bit off more of the apple than any woman since Eve.
It is doubtful that there exists in all fiction a more intriguing character--in spite of her sexual aberrations, her innate selfishness and cruelty, her all but psychotic belief that was something very special and thus excused from the normal mores of decency and honesty.
"Paradise," she said, "I'll tell you what paradise is--it's having what you want all the time. I don't need any one man for that!"
Angelique was small, blondem passionate--and as capable of love as a hooded cobra. She learned sexual blackmail at her mother's knee, and before she was through she bit off more of the apple than any woman since Eve.
It is doubtful that there exists in all fiction a more intriguing character--in spite of her sexual aberrations, her innate selfishness and cruelty, her all but psychotic belief that was something very special and thus excused from the normal mores of decency and honesty.
"Paradise," she said, "I'll tell you what paradise is--it's having what you want all the time. I don't need any one man for that!"
282 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
2 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Grace Metalious
19 books93 followersGrace Metalious was an American author, best known for the controversial novel Peyton Place.
She was born into poverty and a broken home as Marie Grace de Repentigny in the mill town of Manchester, New Hampshire. Blessed with the gift of imagination, she was driven to write from an early age. After graduating from Manchester High School Central, she married George Metalious in 1943, became a housewife and mother, lived in near squalor — and continued to write.
With one child, the couple moved to Durham, New Hampshire, where George attended the University of New Hampshire. In Durham, Grace Metalious began writing seriously, neglecting her house and her three children. When George graduated, he took a position as principal at a school in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.
At the age of 30, she began work in the fall of 1954 on a manuscript with the working title The Tree and the Blossom. By the spring of 1955, she had finished a first draft. However, she and her husband regarded The Tree and the Blossom as an unwieldy title and decided to give the town a name which could be the book's title. They first considered Potter Place (the name of a real community near Andover, New Hampshire). Realizing their town should have a fictional name, they looked through an atlas and found Payton (the name of a real town in Texas). They combined this with Place and changed the "a" to an "e". Thus, Peyton Place was born.
Metalious — the "Pandora in bluejeans" — was said by some to be a dreadful writer and a purveyor of filth, but her most famous book changed the publishing industry forever. With regard to her success, she said, "If I'm a lousy writer, then an awful lot of people have lousy taste," and as to the frankness of her work, she stated, "Even Tom Sawyer had a girlfriend, and to talk about adults without talking about their sex drives is like talking about a window without glass."
Her other novels, all of which sold well but never achieved the same success as her first, were Return to Peyton Place (1959), The Tight White Collar (1961) and No Adam in Eden (1963).
Metalious died of alcoholism on February 25, 1964. "If I had to do it over again," she once remarked, "it would be easier to be poor. Before I was successful, I was as happy as anyone gets." She is buried in Smith Meeting House Cemetery in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.
She was born into poverty and a broken home as Marie Grace de Repentigny in the mill town of Manchester, New Hampshire. Blessed with the gift of imagination, she was driven to write from an early age. After graduating from Manchester High School Central, she married George Metalious in 1943, became a housewife and mother, lived in near squalor — and continued to write.
With one child, the couple moved to Durham, New Hampshire, where George attended the University of New Hampshire. In Durham, Grace Metalious began writing seriously, neglecting her house and her three children. When George graduated, he took a position as principal at a school in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.
At the age of 30, she began work in the fall of 1954 on a manuscript with the working title The Tree and the Blossom. By the spring of 1955, she had finished a first draft. However, she and her husband regarded The Tree and the Blossom as an unwieldy title and decided to give the town a name which could be the book's title. They first considered Potter Place (the name of a real community near Andover, New Hampshire). Realizing their town should have a fictional name, they looked through an atlas and found Payton (the name of a real town in Texas). They combined this with Place and changed the "a" to an "e". Thus, Peyton Place was born.
Metalious — the "Pandora in bluejeans" — was said by some to be a dreadful writer and a purveyor of filth, but her most famous book changed the publishing industry forever. With regard to her success, she said, "If I'm a lousy writer, then an awful lot of people have lousy taste," and as to the frankness of her work, she stated, "Even Tom Sawyer had a girlfriend, and to talk about adults without talking about their sex drives is like talking about a window without glass."
Her other novels, all of which sold well but never achieved the same success as her first, were Return to Peyton Place (1959), The Tight White Collar (1961) and No Adam in Eden (1963).
Metalious died of alcoholism on February 25, 1964. "If I had to do it over again," she once remarked, "it would be easier to be poor. Before I was successful, I was as happy as anyone gets." She is buried in Smith Meeting House Cemetery in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 5, 2017
This is a tough book, but very realistic. It weaves between many decades and lineages but it is written so well it is easy to follow. Though many of the characters come out evil and jaded, the ending has hope!
January 1, 2022
TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT
I would never read this book again, or recommend it to anyone ever. This book is absolutely horrible. I don’t mean horrible as in written badly, but horrible as in I cannot believe how the author was able to put so much hatred and evil in her book. I literally wish I never read this, I feel sick. It was hard to put it down at times because it WAS interesting, I’ll give it that.
This book had A LOT of sexual assault. It was disgusting, and basically nobody gets a happy ending. it’s funny how the description of the book says that it follows “four generations of evil women” but when you really look at the book as a whole, it’s not as simple as labelling the women as evil. They were women who all suffered generational trauma, and as a result entered unhappy marriages with even more evil men. After suffering through so much trauma I wasn’t surprised that they all went crazy as they got older.
The characters were interesting. We had Monique, the (most likely) aromantic and asexual who absolutely hated men all her life. She didn’t want to marry, but she decided she had no choice because of her grandma’s conversation with her. Then she got SA on her WEDDING DAY, by her husband. (More like a tale of four evil men if you ask me :/ ) And then she kills her husband a few years later.
Angelique who is the daughter of Monique. She in my opinion is by far the most fucked up of all of them. She hallucinates her father all throughout her life, chooses a spouse who looks like her father and only sleeps with men much older than her. Angelique was extremely manipulative and toyed with men for fun when she was younger. Then she got SA multiple times by her husband. After that she went bonkers.
And then there’s her two daughters. The last daughter gave hope for the family and I’m assuming the ending signified that she was going to be the end to the generational trauma.
I still feel just sick after reading this novel. I understand the significance of it, but is the author okay?? Is she alright??? Because this was awful. I noticed the way that she wrote from men’s perspective. She wrote from their perspectives in the most disgusting and objectifying way when in regards to a woman, it reminded me of how some men write inaccurate women’s perspectives.
I did post a bit about the funny lines from here, but honestly I’ve completely forgotten about those few lines because nothing like that was ever written again further on. I’m going to go lay down for a while, I’m thoroughly traumatized.
I would never read this book again, or recommend it to anyone ever. This book is absolutely horrible. I don’t mean horrible as in written badly, but horrible as in I cannot believe how the author was able to put so much hatred and evil in her book. I literally wish I never read this, I feel sick. It was hard to put it down at times because it WAS interesting, I’ll give it that.
This book had A LOT of sexual assault. It was disgusting, and basically nobody gets a happy ending. it’s funny how the description of the book says that it follows “four generations of evil women” but when you really look at the book as a whole, it’s not as simple as labelling the women as evil. They were women who all suffered generational trauma, and as a result entered unhappy marriages with even more evil men. After suffering through so much trauma I wasn’t surprised that they all went crazy as they got older.
The characters were interesting. We had Monique, the (most likely) aromantic and asexual who absolutely hated men all her life. She didn’t want to marry, but she decided she had no choice because of her grandma’s conversation with her. Then she got SA on her WEDDING DAY, by her husband. (More like a tale of four evil men if you ask me :/ ) And then she kills her husband a few years later.
Angelique who is the daughter of Monique. She in my opinion is by far the most fucked up of all of them. She hallucinates her father all throughout her life, chooses a spouse who looks like her father and only sleeps with men much older than her. Angelique was extremely manipulative and toyed with men for fun when she was younger. Then she got SA multiple times by her husband. After that she went bonkers.
And then there’s her two daughters. The last daughter gave hope for the family and I’m assuming the ending signified that she was going to be the end to the generational trauma.
I still feel just sick after reading this novel. I understand the significance of it, but is the author okay?? Is she alright??? Because this was awful. I noticed the way that she wrote from men’s perspective. She wrote from their perspectives in the most disgusting and objectifying way when in regards to a woman, it reminded me of how some men write inaccurate women’s perspectives.
I did post a bit about the funny lines from here, but honestly I’ve completely forgotten about those few lines because nothing like that was ever written again further on. I’m going to go lay down for a while, I’m thoroughly traumatized.
August 7, 2022
Re-read.
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this fascinating, but unpleasant novel. We follow various generations of the same family as the women - with venomous deviancy, commit bad deeds because they have no capacity for love.
As a vicious inverted fairy tale, the story had wings, although the style felt campy and ridiculous at times (including a dinner party where an invited woman used the 'wop' term to insult and degrade her hosts) and the dialogue/conversation was outrageously trashy and pulpy. On page 159 of my version, we get the full essence of Bill and Jill's (excellent use of rhyme from Metalious) regular necking sessions that made me laugh out loud (a sort of romance in the rinse cycle type description).
Later on Jill's ex-lover, Bill falls for one of our femme fatales. His father then makes an educated case about why his son was borrowing his car so often: "It was to take his little Canuck girl friend out and lay her because it was a sure bet that he couldn't lay her anywhere else".
Metalious' last novel seemed somewhat autobiographical, regarding the alcoholism of a fair few of the characters. It's fitting that the unhappy author's last novel is no walk in the park. Overall, a worthy read.
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this fascinating, but unpleasant novel. We follow various generations of the same family as the women - with venomous deviancy, commit bad deeds because they have no capacity for love.
As a vicious inverted fairy tale, the story had wings, although the style felt campy and ridiculous at times (including a dinner party where an invited woman used the 'wop' term to insult and degrade her hosts) and the dialogue/conversation was outrageously trashy and pulpy. On page 159 of my version, we get the full essence of Bill and Jill's (excellent use of rhyme from Metalious) regular necking sessions that made me laugh out loud (a sort of romance in the rinse cycle type description).
Later on Jill's ex-lover, Bill falls for one of our femme fatales. His father then makes an educated case about why his son was borrowing his car so often: "It was to take his little Canuck girl friend out and lay her because it was a sure bet that he couldn't lay her anywhere else".
Metalious' last novel seemed somewhat autobiographical, regarding the alcoholism of a fair few of the characters. It's fitting that the unhappy author's last novel is no walk in the park. Overall, a worthy read.
September 19, 2014
The fight was strong in Metalious in this novel that follows the lives of a thread of women, all related from the great-grandmother all the way down to the g-granddaughter, who all share the same flaw--a complete and utter inability to love widely, freely, openly. There's a deep sadness in this book that I did not expect, and the characters are often so emotionally damaged their despicable. Yet, Metalious sets the story up in such a way that explains why or how they've ended up that way. It's melodramatic and a bit over-the-top, but it wouldn't be Metalious if it wasn't. Writing such hard, angry characters means the narrative itself often feels hard and impenetrable, with the people around these women left behind in the wake of their emotion-less existence. Sex plays a huge part in the power struggle of every woman in this book--it's a calling card, a playing card, and a stop sign at every turn. In a way, the lives of these women are not fully realized, by circumstance, by decision, by the time, and that's what struck me as so sad. Not what they did with their lives, which was often tragic, but how there was really no other path.
June 24, 2021
Grace Metalious was French-Canadian and grew up and lived in Manchester NH. There is a street named after here there. This is a sad, "noir" story about four generations of a family of immigrants from rural Québec. The focus is on the women of the family, their sexuality and manipulativeness. Alcoholism plays large as well. I'm sure it is partly autobiographical. It was certainly an interesting read and a good break from the more serious non-fiction I have been reading.
February 2, 2009
Different from "Peyton Place", more intense. I would recommend
January 8, 2014
Complete trashy awesomeness with pop culture cred to boot.
August 11, 2022
Aquí un fan de Grace Metallious.
El último libro firmado por la autora contiene muchos de los elementos que la hicieron famosa en su momento: romances tórridos, escenas explícitas, secretos inconfesables y dramas familiares loquísimos.
De sus cuatro libros, 'Paraíso sin Adán' tal vez sea el más diferente al resto. Mientras que los otros tres ('Peyton Place', 'Regreso a Peyton Place' y 'Los impostores') se centran en la vida en las pequeñas comunidades de Nueva Inglaterra, este pone el foco sobre las tres generaciones de mujeres de la familia Montigny, cada una con su propio trauma respecto al sexo masculino. A saber, Monique, que desarrolla una fuerte repulsión por los hombres después de haber sido violada en su noche de bodas; Angelique, que suple la muerte de su padre con múltiples amantes; y las hermanas Alana y Lesley: mientras que una sigue los pasos de su madre, la otra quizá sea la única que pueda romper la losa que arrastran las mujeres de la familia.
El libro fue escrito con el muy evidente propósito de escandalizar al lector de los años sesenta. Y así recurre a una acumulación de excesos: infidelidades, escenas sexuales, alcoholismo, abortos, enfermedades mentales, agresión sexual, envenenamientos, peleas entre mujeres...
Más allá del efecto escándalo, el libro ofrece poco: los diálogos son poco finos; las escenas, caóticas (a menudo yendo adelante y atrás en el tiempo); la genealogía familiar, confusa; y la lista de personajes, inecesariamente larga. Hay digresiones absurdas para contar historias inconexas y la mezcla de lineas temporales es extraña.
Y, sin embargo, hay en el libro una cierta alma que otros muchos no tienen. En ese sentido, destaca el papel de Grace Metallious, que conoció la riqueza gracias a sus libros, pero también la desgracia y el alcoholismo, de constituir un retablo de la miseria humana. El mensaje parece apuntar en la dirección que todos los hombres son una mierda y que las mujeres están condenadas a tropezar con ellos una y otra vez. Así el 'Paraíso sin Adán' de que habla el título, no sería sino la existencia sin hombres, sin otro sexo que hubiese podido tentar a Eva.
En definitiva, una novela en la linea del tridente trash norteamericano: Grace Metalious, Jacqueline Sussann y Virginia Andrews. Gasolina para las bajas pasiones, pasapáginas frenético y acumulativo, sin ninguna pretensión culta. Una maravilla, vaya.
El último libro firmado por la autora contiene muchos de los elementos que la hicieron famosa en su momento: romances tórridos, escenas explícitas, secretos inconfesables y dramas familiares loquísimos.
De sus cuatro libros, 'Paraíso sin Adán' tal vez sea el más diferente al resto. Mientras que los otros tres ('Peyton Place', 'Regreso a Peyton Place' y 'Los impostores') se centran en la vida en las pequeñas comunidades de Nueva Inglaterra, este pone el foco sobre las tres generaciones de mujeres de la familia Montigny, cada una con su propio trauma respecto al sexo masculino. A saber, Monique, que desarrolla una fuerte repulsión por los hombres después de haber sido violada en su noche de bodas; Angelique, que suple la muerte de su padre con múltiples amantes; y las hermanas Alana y Lesley: mientras que una sigue los pasos de su madre, la otra quizá sea la única que pueda romper la losa que arrastran las mujeres de la familia.
El libro fue escrito con el muy evidente propósito de escandalizar al lector de los años sesenta. Y así recurre a una acumulación de excesos: infidelidades, escenas sexuales, alcoholismo, abortos, enfermedades mentales, agresión sexual, envenenamientos, peleas entre mujeres...
Más allá del efecto escándalo, el libro ofrece poco: los diálogos son poco finos; las escenas, caóticas (a menudo yendo adelante y atrás en el tiempo); la genealogía familiar, confusa; y la lista de personajes, inecesariamente larga. Hay digresiones absurdas para contar historias inconexas y la mezcla de lineas temporales es extraña.
Y, sin embargo, hay en el libro una cierta alma que otros muchos no tienen. En ese sentido, destaca el papel de Grace Metallious, que conoció la riqueza gracias a sus libros, pero también la desgracia y el alcoholismo, de constituir un retablo de la miseria humana. El mensaje parece apuntar en la dirección que todos los hombres son una mierda y que las mujeres están condenadas a tropezar con ellos una y otra vez. Así el 'Paraíso sin Adán' de que habla el título, no sería sino la existencia sin hombres, sin otro sexo que hubiese podido tentar a Eva.
En definitiva, una novela en la linea del tridente trash norteamericano: Grace Metalious, Jacqueline Sussann y Virginia Andrews. Gasolina para las bajas pasiones, pasapáginas frenético y acumulativo, sin ninguna pretensión culta. Una maravilla, vaya.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 10, 2018
The author is quite cynical. From a male point of view, this is a difficult book to enjoy.
June 3, 2012
Here again the same theme as in "The Tight White Collar"...sex,family problems,French-Canadians living in small town New Hampshire.I could relate to some of the places described or the mindset of the poeple there_simply because I lived in Nashua,NH for awhile.Fast read_
It was an interesting portrayal of how traits & sterotypes from one generation are passed on through each new generation.Some of which need very badly to be broken.
It was an interesting portrayal of how traits & sterotypes from one generation are passed on through each new generation.Some of which need very badly to be broken.
June 4, 2010
Grace Metalious told the story with a deep sense of understanding of the topic. It made the list of my most loved books and i recommended it to all my friends.
It descibed alot raw sexuality that grips your flesh.
It descibed alot raw sexuality that grips your flesh.
December 1, 2014
Found in a second-hand bookshop for 50p. Read only because the author wrote Peyton Place that sold 10m copies at the time.
Persona opinion: real garbage.
I am going to throw it in the paper garbage bin
August 25, 2014
This was an ok book, how ever I do wish the author had done more to make it more interesting.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews