Content Warning: The novel and the guide reference alcoholism, sexual assault, incest, death by suicide, animal cruelty, abortion, and racism.

The novel begins on a warm Friday in October 1936, in the small New England town of Peyton Place. The town is seemingly peaceful and unremarkable.

Kenny Stearns, the town handyman, walks close to the town schools; other people gossip about him because Kenny is known to drink heavily. At the school, a teacher named Miss Thornton observes and reflects on the students in her eighth-grade class as they leave for the day. She worries about a girl named Allison MacKenzie; Allison is sensitive and doesn’t have any friends other than one girl named Selena Cross. Miss Thornton also notices a boy named Rodney Harrington bullying a smaller boy named Norman Page; a third boy, Ted Carter, intervenes to help Norman.

Watching these events, Miss Thornton wonders if she can have any impact on the children she teaches. Nonetheless, she hopes education will benefit the children growing up in a small town.

After leaving school, Allison walks to a nearby park to daydream. She doesn’t like most of the other girls at school and likes to spend her time being alone in nature.