Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls » (Unabridged)

Rae Lawrence is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Satisfaction. She lives in New York City.

Valley of the Dolls was sexy, shocking, and unrelenting in its revelations of the dangers facing women who dare to chase their most glamorous dreams. It shot to the top of the bestseller lists in 1966 and made Jacqueline Susann a superstar. It remains the quintessential big, blockbuster, must-read, can't- put-down bestseller.

Before her death in 1974, Susann spent many months working on a draft for a sequel that continued the stories of Anne Welles, Neely O'Hara, and Lyon Burke. Now, after thirty years, the perfect writer has been found to turn Susann's deliciously ambitious ideas into a novel that matches the original shock for shock and thrill for thrill.

In Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls, Rae Lawrence picks up the story in the late '80s and brings it right into the next century. Long a devoted "Valley" girl herself, Rae has re-imagined the original characters in a contemporary reality (and adjusted their ages just a bit), exactly as Jackie would have wanted her to. And if you've never read Valley of the Dolls, no matter. Sometimes the present is even more surprising and fun when you don't remember the past.

And what a story! Neely's golden voice has brought her fame and success, but now she craves acceptance in social circles where her kind of success means nothing at all. Anne, born and bred in those very circles, must choose between returning home or pursuing a fabulous television career - and the kind of passion she once knew with Lyon. And Lyon, who loses everything including Anne, looks for happiness in the most unexpected of places.

Taking us behind the closed doors of New York, East Hampton, and Los Angeles, whetting our appetites for more with a new generation of young women and men who grow up far too fast, and spicing the whole story with a generous sprinkling of sex, drugs, and cosmetic surgery, Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls is the ultimate beach read for our time. But feel free to devour it any time of the year, wherever you are.

It's been a long time since readers had this much fun between the covers. It's time to jump back in.

Publishers Weekly

This tedious, tame sequel to Valley of the Dolls arrives 35 years after the original publishing phenomenon. Claiming to be based on a first draft by Susann (1921-1974), it certainly is aptly titled, as it languishes deep in the shadow of the original. Susann capitalized on readers' hunger for gossip by giving her fictional characters aspects of real-life celebrities, creating a thrilling guess-who puzzler featuring composites of Judy Garland, Ethel Merman and Dean Martin. Neither guessing games nor drug use (the other thrill of the original) play much of a role in Lawrence's novel. There's no sex either not just by Susann standards, but even compared to a Regency romance. Seven times characters venture near a bed only to have the action abruptly skip over the deed with "Afterwards... " ("...he lit a cigarette"/ "...they turned the television back on"/ "...he brought her a fresh glass of water"). Fans of the rough and tumble, blunt but addictive prose and plotting of Susann's original will find this rambling series of episodes (there's not enough drive to pull them into anything resembling a plot) lacking. Neely, Anne and Lyon are all back (burdened with dull teenage kids), but the pseudonymous Lawrence has no idea what to do with them. Most of the notable events take place between chapters (Neely wins an Oscar for playing arch-rival Helen Lawson in a big-screen biopic, Anne and Lyon divorce, Neely aborts Lyon's child). Susann's original (reissued by Grove in 1997) still packs a wallop; the sequel is a pulled punch. (June 26) Forecast: Lawrence and Valley of the Dolls are both record breakers: the former received a top advance for her 1987 debut, Satisfaction, and the latter has sold a historical 30 million copies (and still sells 2,000-4,000 copies a month for Grove). Nevertheless, the two aren't going very far together. Susann is still a camp/cult favorites, but two lackluster biopics (Isn't She Great and TV's Scandalous Me) haven't heralded a revival. This novel will be get a lot of press coverage, and will be much talked about, but poor word-of-mouth will dampen sales. Expect a hit, but not a major one. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.