DOLORES

by Jacqueline Susann ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 8, 1976

In her own introduction to her first short, final book, Miss Susann says that she followed up the suggestion of several people to write a novel about Jacqueline Kennedy which in time she decided to do, not as a roman a clef. She would create her own character and her own story of a ""woman who longed to belong to someone"" and also wanted to have a life other than that of ""The Widow."" Sometimes the two, Jacqueline now Dolores, do seem inseparable except for other changes of name (Donald Brooks is Dolores' favorite designer, not de la Renta) from the time when she steps off the plane from New Orleans (not Dallas) after her husband President Jimmy Ryan was shot down, saying ""I want the press to see the blood of my husband."" For the first year thereafter Dolores secludes herself; with equal sexual reticence Miss Susann handles the two affairs to follow--a brief one with a screenwriter; a first and last love (she didn't love the unfaithful Jimmy Ryan--it was an imposed marriage) for Barry Haines. He needed more than her $30,000 per annum and his $20,000 as a lawyer to live comfortably on and so he married the Hap Hap cereal heiress who died conveniently but only left him with an equally meager income. He married another rich woman--Dolores would have been content to live more simply--and thus she acquiesced to the offer of der twenty-billion-dollar-Baron Erich who paid her jet-set, drug-taking sister Nita in England five million to arrange the alliance. The Baron leaves her on their wedding night to go off to see his mistress and this is where the book ends. . . . It is difficult to perceive where Miss Susann has ""created her own character"" although she extends far more sympathy toward Dolores than the original received at any point in time after the final rites. But just as surely as Dolores always made the ""Best Dressed Lists"" in her sister's ""hand-me-downs,"" this will make the Best Seller Lists.

Pub Date: July 8, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1976

Categories: FICTION