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A Manhattan sightseer, New Hampshire's earthy Novelist Grace Metalious, 32, whose sex-gorged Peyton Place (TIME, Sept. 24) has stood No. 1 on the nation's bestseller lists for almost two months, counterattacked censors and all who would ban her barnyard portrayal of a rampageous U.S. hamlet. Cried plumpish Authoress Metalious, mother of three: "I know about small towns. A rock in a field may look firm, but kick it over and you'll find all kinds of things crawling underneath. Too much sex? How can you write a novel about normal men and women, let alone abnormal ones, with no sex in the plot? We all had a mother and father! Even Tom Sawyer had a girl friend!"
* After the ball, Elsa, though granting she panned Maria's use of her larynx at her Met opening, heartily rasped that the "feud" was all "a joke."