VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

The dolls of the title are barbiturates, seconal is red, nembutal yellow, and amytal emerald green, and they seem to be one of the occupational inevitabilities of show business. Before the book is over, and it's told in spansule form over some twenty years, Jon has committed suicide; Neely who has worked her way up to fifty a day dissolved in Scotch, has been in and out of the ""funny farm""; and Anne is just working her way through her first prescription. All three girls start out together in New York and for a few pages it promises to be a Xeroxed copy of Rona Jaffe (without the style). The girls make it Jen as a European sex goddess whose mammary equipment is unbeatable; Neely in Hollywood-- she can sing too; and Anne, quiet, nice Anne who is always in love with one man who picks her up and puts her down, in television. Then there's SEX, and actually not in some time has there been quite so much femme- styled exposure; it's so overstimulated that no wonder these girls need pills. But they go through a lot-- fag husbands, abortions, stomach pumps, sleep cures, cancer, adultery; you name it, they've had it. And even though the message which is encapsulated is that you should tiptoe past the medicine cabinet, the book has been written in the attempt to keep you awake in a numbed sort of condition. The movies promise production; the publishers assure promotion; and there will certainly be a reprint refill along the way.