![]() ![]() ![]() Every character is an authority to every other, and they constantly offer useless and suffocating maxims: A man must feel he runs things, but as long as you control yourself, you control him. Since their fates are inevitable, the book is filled with advice, the sole consolation of the desperate. Just as in the myth, where things cannot turn out well for humans, in Valley of the Dolls nothing can turn out well for women past thirty. The protagonists can’t do anything to escape their terrible fates, and each choice binds them closer to their destinies, yet there are no other choices. The panic with which one turns the pages is like the mixture of curiosity and fear that accompanies reading the Oedipus myth. Reading the book feels more like hurtling down Niagara Falls-driven by a torrent of sex, drugs, and doom. The New York Times called the novel part of the “narcotic” genre of literature, which has its reader “float down the river of lethargy,” but that’s nuts. Even when their dreams are partially realized, they cost the women an unbearable amount of frustration and heartbreak. The novel follows three friends, Anne, Neely, and Jennifer, as they try to make it big in show business and find true love. Jacqueline Susann’s roman à clef Valley of the Dolls was hated by high-culture critics when it was published in 1966, though it quickly became the year’s best seller. ![]()
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