Allison MacKenzie

Allison is one of the novel's three central characters. The book follows her from her days as a gawky, secretive, dreamy eighth grader to her first years as an independent woman struggling to make her career as a writer in New York City. For most of the novel she is emotional but repressed, naïve, and idealizing of the man she thinks of as her father, critical of her mother, and almost pathetically eager for friendship. Her aching need to not feel alone, to be recognized and valued, is a core aspect of her personality, and is perhaps a part of why she pursues a career as a writer. Peyton Place never makes the point explicitly, but there is the sense about Allison that she believes that if someone reads, likes, and understands her stories, even if it is an anonymous someone somewhere that she doesn't even...