Valley of the Dolls

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802135196 ISBN 13: 9780802135193

Publisher: Grove Press, 1997

The All-Time Pop Culture Classic!

Dolls: red or black; capsules or tablets; washed down with vodka or swallowed straight for Anne, Neely, and Jennifer, it doesn’t matter, as long as the pill bottle is within easy reach. These three women become best friends when they are young and struggling in New York City and then climb to the top of the entertainment industry only to find that there is no place left to go but down into the Valley of the Dolls.

Review:

Sex and drugs and shlock and more--Jacqueline Susann's addictively entertaining trash classic about three showbiz girls clawing their way to the top and hitting bottom in New York City has it all. Though it's inspired by Susann's experience as a mid-century Broadway starlet who came heartbreakingly close to making it, but did not, and despite its reputation as THE roman á clef of the go-go 1960s, the novel turned out to be weirdly predictive of 1990s post-punk, post-feminist, post "riot grrrl" culture. Jackie Susann may not be a writer for the ages, but--alas!--she's still a writer for our times.

About the Author:

Jacqueline Susann left her hometown of Philadelphia at eighteen and moved to New York where she acted extensively and won the Best Dressed Woman in Television award four times. But it was the success of her three blockbuster novels—Valley of the Dolls, The Love Machine and Once Is Not Enough—that transformed her into the Pucci-clad media superstar we remember today. Jacqueline Susann was married to producer Irving Mansfield. She died in 1974.