Amazon.com
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.
New York Magazine, Mim Udovitch
Its three protagonists--Anne Welles, the uptight-but-full-of-a-strange-yearning New England beauty; Neely O'Hara, the Judy Garland á clef; and Jennifer North, who is sort of the Marilyn Monroe á clef and also sort of the Brigitte Bardot á clef but mainly sort of the least realized character in the book--all spend most of the novel with what they want excruciatingly just out of reach, and all are ultimately not only defeated but self-defeating ... 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.
