New York was steaming - an angry concrete animal caught unawares in an unseasonable hot spell.

The temperature hit ninety degrees the day she arrived. Susann thought the 1960s would be remembered for three things: The Beatles, Andy Warhol and her.

On their way down, they start popping pills, aka the 'dolls' of the title. Meanwhile, the book's heroines fall from such great heights that they could have invented gravity. Their goals are fame, fortune and men - not necessarily in that order - and they're in a rush, since Susann says a woman's looks fade irreversibly in her 20s, and the ones who marry for love age fastest. And it doesn't hurt that the characters in the book are thinly veiled versions of Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly and Judy Garland. While it's true that the novel is woefully short on style, character development, subtlety, complexity and phraseology - oh, does it have plot. And when that failed to impress them, he blew a gasket and had to be bleeped. He cited every literary misdemeanor in the book, and when the audience came to Susann's defense, Simon reminded them that he had a Ph.D. On television, he said he'd rather 'see dogs fornicate' than read her story. The critic John Simon was apoplectic about her success. When it was first published in the 1960s, Time magazine branded it 'the dirty book of the month.' Susann was accused of 'typing on a cash register,' and Truman Capote called her 'a truck driver in drag.' She threw a drink at Johnny Carson, a punch at a critic and a chair at a wrestler, before jumping into the ring. Valley of the Dolls is a zipper-ripper that has been called trashy, tawdry, glitzy, lusty, sordid and seamy - and that's just the beginning of its appeal.

I don't suppose it's much of a rationale to say it's only soft porn. The English professor stared at the book's hot-pink cover, making me feel like it was pornography. What magnum opus would you like to be seen reading? Ulysses? Swann's Way? How about Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls? That's the guilty pleasure I was caught with. And she's not just any English professor she's the one who read Canterbury Tales aloud in class with an authentic Middle English accent. Imagine this: You're on a plane before takeoff, spellbound by a book, when suddenly you realize that the woman sitting down next to you is your former English professor. Nancy lives in a little town called Paradox. Nancy Bachrach is the author of The Center of the Universe, a memoir about her mother's recovery from 'permanent and irreversible' brain damage.

Valley of the dolls paperback