Valley of the Dolls

(New York): Bernard Geis, (1966).

Price: $1,000.00

Hardcover. First edition. Very slight soiling, fine in near fine dustwrapper with some rubbing and a few modest tears. Inscribed by the author to a noted jurist: "To Judge Simon H. Rifkind – my dear friend, Alfred Staelsin[?], hopes you will like this book. All my best – Jacqueline Susann." Bestseller that was the basis for the scandalous 1967 film, directed by Mark Robson, and featuring a large cast including Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Paul Burke, Sharon Tate, and with a cameo by Susann herself. A book that usually looks like it has been read to death, this is a nice copy.

Item #335136

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Item #335136 Valley of the Dolls. Jacqueline SUSANN.
Valley of the Dolls
Valley of the Dolls
Valley of the Dolls

Jacqueline Susann
birth name: Jacqueline Susann
born: 08/20/1918
died: 09/21/1974
nationality: USA

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Biography

Jacqueline Susann was the first author to publish two number-one best-sellers back to back, and simultaneously to face the nearly unanimous outrage of critics. When asked if she read the reviews of her novels Valley of the Dolls and The Love Machine, the actress-turned-writer responded: "I'd like to have the critics like me, I'd like to have everybody like what I write. But when my book sells, I know people like the book. That's the most important thing, because writing is communication." Moreover Susann contended, "The day is over when the point of writing is just to turn a phrase that critics will quote, like Henry James. I'm not interested in turning a phrase; what matters to me is telling a story that involves people. The hell with what critics say. I've made characters live, so that people talk about them at cocktail parties, and that, to me, is what counts. You have to have a divine conceit in your judgment. I have it."

As Nora Ephron noted, "If Jacqueline Susann is no literary figure, she is nevertheless an extraordinary publishing phenomenon. . . . With the possible exception of Cosmopolitan magazine, no one writes about sadism in modern man and masochism in modern woman quite as horribly and accurately as Jacqueline Susann." In addition, Ephron was able to identify the reason behind the incredible success of Susann's first best-seller: "Valley had a message that had a magnetic appeal for women readers: it described the standard female fantasy--of going to the big city, striking it rich, meeting fabulous men--and went on to show every reader that she was far better off than the heroines in the book--who took pills, killed themselves, and made general messes of their lives. It was, essentially, a morality tale. And despite its reputation, it was not really a dirty book. Most women, I think, do not want to read hard-core pornography. They do not even want to read anything terribly technical about the sex act. What they want to read about is lust. And Jacqueline Susann gave it to them." - from Contemporary Authors Onlinemore