Synopses & Reviews
Valley of the Dolls, first published in 1966, skyrocketed to the top of "The New York Times hardcover best-seller list and later went on to sell an unprecedented eight million copies in paperback. Jacqueline Susann's sensational story of three pill-popping show-biz women (whom she modeled, rumor has it, after Judy Garland, Grace Kelly, and Marilyn Monroe) perfectly crystallized the decadence of the 1960s. A Pucci-clad superstar, Jackie blurred the boundaries between her own persona and the characters she wrote about. With Valley of the Dolls, Susann went far beyond showing us the seamier side of the entertainment world she ushered in a whole new genre of mass-market fiction and staked her claim as a pop pioneer.
Review
"I should say, first of all, that I have absolutely no criticisms to make of this book. It is perfect, and I'm not just saying that because I practically memorized it at the age of 13 and it was one of my primary illicit sources of sexual information in the gap between information and experience, and I therefore view it with fond nostalgia....However melodramatic its plot may be, Valley of the Dolls is simply old-fashioned riveting." New York Magazine, Mim Udovitch
Synopsis
The All-Time Pop Culture Classic!Dolls: red or black; capsules or tablets; washed down with vodka or swallowed straightfor Anne, Neely, and Jennifer, it doesnt 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 industryonly to find that there is no place left to go but downinto the Valley of the Dolls.
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.