valley of the dolls by jacqueline susann

Susann, meanwhile, remained determined not to lose momentum. When Pogrebin sent copies out to journalists, she typed out the press release on phony prescription paper, with little fake pills (or “dolls”) attached. The 1966 publicity, spearheaded by Letty Cottin Pogrebin who was director of advertising, publicity, promotion and subsidiary rights, was the first of its kind. In fact, Simon Doonan, an author and creative ambassador for Barneys, called the all singing, all dancing and all bitching Neely “a character ripped straight from the pages of the Daily Mail ” in the foreword to the special 50th anniversary edition released by Grove Press on July 4. With catfights, pill popping and insults (not to mention a rather infamous wig) hurled across its pages much of the plot could have easily been written in 2016. But the characters of Anne Welles, Neely O’Hara and Jennifer North-three girls who arrive in New York in search of, you guessed it, fame, wealth and romance-resonated with young women of the sixties who had never read anything like it. The book was chock full of shock factor for its time, with many publishers refusing to touch it until Bernard Geis took it on. The 50th anniversary edition of ‘Valley of the Dolls, published this week. the first author in history, male or female, ever to have three consecutive best sellers.” “Jackie broke the rules, and we see what success she had. “She broke the glass ceiling,” Lisa Bishop, the stepdaughter of Susann’s husband Irving Mansfield and manager of the Jacqueline Susann estate, told the Observer.

Having sold 31 million copies to date, the book spent 65 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. However, Vidal and Capote’s insults wielded little effect upon America’s readers. While Helen Gurley Brown described it as “maddeningly sexy” and Nora Ephron likened the work of fiction to an “absolutely delicious gossip column,” the novelist Gore Vidal sniped “ She doesn’t write, she types,” and Truman Capote skipped over Susann’s literary skills entirely, instead likening her appearance to a “truck driver in drag.” Published in 1966, the book-and Susann-was as reviled as it was loved. When Susann’s novel, a rip roaring tale of drug addiction, showbiz, ambition and salacious sex scandals, landed in bookstores fifty years ago this week, it not only left its mark on pop culture, but turned a male dominated literary world upside down.

Valley of the dolls by jacqueline susann