So, I finished Lace, and thought I’d continue my retro theme, and went straight onto Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls. The Boyfriend had started to read it a while ago, but said he couldn’t get into it. I on the other hand, started reading and suddenly found myself 1/3 of the way through, completely immersed in this fabulously trashy world, loving every utterance of the characters, and looking forward to the next page, without even trying. Like gobbling up a box of chocolates all in one sitting, this was the ultimate guilty pleasure. To paraphrase Miss Jean Brodie (played by the amazing Maggie Smith, in 1969, so indulge me with the link if you will): For those who like that sort of book, that is the sort of book they like. And it seems, I do like that sort of book, and consequently I did LOVE it.

Ok, so it’s not exactly literary writing, and its writing has been widely criticised, while Susann was alive, and since her death in 1974. I’m reading Steven King’s On Writing at the moment, and he gives the book as an example of bad writing.  Julie Burchill explains this in the book’s introduction: ‘Significantly, it was written by that rare thing, the published novelist not castrated by an extended education...and thus able to write her book for the public rather than her peers and the critics.’ In a TV interview, Susann was asked about this criticism, and her response was all she was doing was telling stories: at least that’s something Susann and King can agree on. But come on people, I wasn’t reading it for a literary experience, if I wanted that I’d have read The Reluctant Fundamentalist, (which I have, and rather enjoyed actually) no, this was instead of reading 50 Shades of Grey remember!  

Published in 1966, spanning 1945 to 1965, in contrast to Lace, it really isn’t a feminist novel; instead it’s more like a collation of trashy human interest stories thrown together. Twenty years of celebrity gossip columns (think heat, without pictures, more sex and lots of prescription drugs) pulled together in one book. If you want to know who Anne, Neely, Jennifer and the ageing ogre of a star, Helen Lawson are based on, you only have to do some googling.

There’s a particularly illuminating scene where Helen Lawson, feeling threatened by a younger female star in her current musical theatre production, manipulates the director and producer to ensure the younger girl leaves of her own accord, (hence they wouldn’t have to pay her to the end of the show’s run if they actually fired her), by removing her songs and acting to little more than a walk on part. As soon as she’s gone, they offer it to Neely (broadly based on Judy Garland, in case you’ve not found out yet) replace all the songs and acting, and this is the start of her journey to being a big star.

The women enter the, on the surface, glamorous world of Hollywood, and are gradually drawn into its jaws and spat out the other end, rather less pleasant individuals. Unlike Lace, the women start as friends, but end up as something very different.

Each woman’s strive for perfection is centred around finding a perfect man, even if that man happens to be already attached to another woman. Each small decision sets them on a path to their own particular brand of self destruction: awful relationship; becoming a megalomaniac movie star; dependency on prescription drugs. I found myself shouting (in my head, obv) no, don’t do that, and reading on through metaphorical gaps in my fingers like when watching a horror movie.

The dolls in the title, aren’t little girls’ toys, they are prescription uppers and downers which during the time the book’s set, were prescribed for back pain, insomnia, mild depression, and dispensed like liquorish all sorts. As the characters’ love lives don’t run to plan (when does it) they take solace with the dolls to help them sleep, but then reach for a different doll, to keep them awake the next day, bright eyed and ready for whatever Susann throws at them.  

And it all romps along, until it doesn’t. Until the wheels start to fall of the characters’ lives: Anne realises her boyfriend is a commitment phobic, and will continue to mess her around; Neely starts taking the dolls – first to help her sleep, then to help her work 18 hour days on film sets, before she’s sent to rehab; Jennifer, having finally found a man to love her, realises she has breast cancer and instead of a mastectomy and have her boyfriend lose ‘his babies’ as he refers to her breasts (I know, right!!) she kills herself. So when it goes wrong, it does so in a splendid, Technicolor, multi dimensional way. See what I mean about reading through metaphorical gaps in my fingers!

It definitely doesn’t have a happily ever after ending, so if you squint a bit, you could say it’s ‘artistic’ (quotation marks firmly either side). Anne’s continued dependence on dolls to cope with her darling Lyon’s behaviour (anyone called Lyon was always going to be trouble I feel), is particularly tragic. But whatever you think of the writing, it’s definitely a good romp, just as readable now as when it was published (and sold 30million copies btw) and very much a guilty pleasure. And I’m all for guilty pleasures!

Have any of you read Dolls? What did you think? Do you have any other guilty pleasure reads you can recommend me?

Until next time

Liam x

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last twelve months, so there was this book which everyone read and raved about you see, it was called 50 Shades of Grey. I was at an airport last summer and a member of security staff asked a woman to empty her hand luggage. This revealed a well thumbed copy of 50 Shades, he removed it, shook it a bit (presumably to show it didn’t contain anything dodgy or illegal) looked at me, rolled his eyes and said, like we were best friends: ‘Every woman’s hand luggage I’ve checked this summer has one of these in it. Every single one,’ before replacing it in her bag. Later, I perused the shelves of the bookshop, and noticed a very attractively covered book called Lace, by Shirley Conran, and thought nothing more of it, except, I wonder if she’s anything to do with Terence Conran.

I’d had so many women recommend me to read 50 Shades: colleagues, cousins, family friends, neighbours, I thought there must be something in this. A friend explained this obsession as a peculiarly British thing, ‘It can only be one thing at a time for us Brits: one book, one film, one song. Then the next one comes along, and it’s just that and only that for the next few months.’ I do think there’s something to that theory, although I’d extend it to more than just Britain.

Normally I’m quite resistant to this sort of hype/obsession, as I normally think it can’t really be as good as everyone thinks – I didn’t see Avatar until it came on TV and then, from the comfort of my own sofa, thought yeah, that was good, not amazing, but good. Anyway, back to 50 Shades...so I read an article in GQ magazine, which included an extract, which had a disclaimer at the start: ‘This is not a pastiche, this is an actual extract of the book.’ Had it not included the disclaimer I would have thought they were mocking it.

I’m not one to yuck someone else’s yum, (different strokes for different folks and all that) and it has to be said, whatever E L James did, worked, so fair play to her. But after reading that extract, I knew, as certainly as I’ve ever known anything, there was no way I would enjoy reading the whole book. So I didn’t. After some research, I traced this genre of fiction right back to the mother ship: Jacqueline Suranne’s Valley of the Dolls, and a more recent addition, Shirley Conran’s Lace. And then I thought I should have bought that book at the airport all those weeks ago.

No matter, I tracked down copies of both books and settled in for a fantastic few weeks with them.

Lace, by Shirley Conran (who was married to Terence the designer Conran by the way) was reissued in 2012 on its thirtieth year since being originally published, and it’s as fresh and relevant now as it was then. Conran wrote it to teach a generation of women about sex through their mothers reading it, and banning them from reading it. Just think about Relax, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood being banned by Radio 1, it went straight to number one. There really is no such thing as bad publicity!

It follows the lives of four friends, Maxine, Pagan, Judy and Kate, starting as they meet at a Swiss finishing school, through jobs as magazine publishers, interior designers, PRs, periods of alcoholism, changes of husbands, lovers (and rest assured, there’s plenty of sex including a scene involving a goldfish). There is also another woman, Lili whose identity is unclear at the start, apart from an implied link with one of the other four women. Lili’s upbringing includes modelling, a depressingly realistic description of her being groomed and progressing to the pornographic film industry, and eventually more mainstream films.

I just couldn’t wait to read about each of the women’s next lover, job, challenge, or find out what this Lili had to do with them all. The easy style of writing really draws you through the story, to such an extent I found myself laying in cold bath water, skin wrinkled like a prune, on more than a few occasions.

The reason I stuck with this, and knew I could, was because behind the sex, jobs, lovers etc, the thing which held the book together was the strong friendships which bind the women together over the decades. And in my writing, that’s what interests me – long term friends sticking with each other.

Yes, they’re all ultimately successful in whatever their endeavour is, but it’s not just a simple ‘I thought about working in the publishing industry, and before I knew it I was the editor of Vogue, which was nice.’ No, it includes the ups and downs, knock backs and surprises we all encounter in real life.

In addition, these women become successful without the help of men, which is why it must have been so refreshing in 1982, and is still so relevant in 2013. Even now it’s so refreshing for a book’s message about a happy ending not to revolve around marriage, but about friends who’ll stick with you through whatever life throws up at you. And for me, that is what made this much more interesting and contemporary than just a ‘bonkbuster’ with an abundance of sex scenes and a rich hero.

Have any of you read Lace, I’d love to hear what you thought about it. Or have you read 50 Shades, and completely disagree with me?

Until next time

Liam x

I have finally got round to adding my Resources for Writers page to this website. It’s a way for me to keep all the useful blog posts and articles I’ve read, in one place, and also to share them with you. I’d love to hear from you if you think they’re useful, not so much, or have any suggestions for others to add.

My writing week in the New Forest went well: I left with 20,000 words more on the manuscript and a much better idea how the final seven chapters were going to pan out. That’s the tip about planning what to write, which I find invaluable to help my writing productivity. I travelled far and wide (Bath, Brighton and large swathes of Hampshire) visiting friends, worked my way through my box set of Dawson’s Creek - I know it’s cheesy, I know it’s a bit old now, but I just love its eternally optimistic view of romance accompanied by schmaltzy music – perfect escapism.

So at the moment, The Second Book stands at 72,000 words, with three chapters left to write on the first draft. This time, I’ve resisted the urge to look back and see if a certain character’s hair if brown in early chapters, and changes to blonde later on, or other similar details. Instead, I’ve just forged on, like a road trip, until I reach the end. I now definitely see this first draft as me just getting stuff on the page, I can always come back to fix things later, but you cannot, and never will be able to fix or edit a blank page.

Alongside writing, I also like to read a wide variety of books, and this, as well as seeing friends and family helps spark ideas as I’m writing. I’ve gone through something of a retro phase of late as the last two books I read were: Lace, by Shirley Conran, and Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. And I don’t mind standing up and admitting it here and now, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THEM BOTH FROM COVER TO COVER. I know, I know, they’re not exactly M/M fiction, but between my life and my friends, I do I have quite a lot of M/M going on already, so do like to foray into the arena of more mainstream fiction.

What a foray it was: sex involving a goldfish; a Swiss finishing school; a wig being flushed down the toilet; and I now know what the 'dolls' in the title refer to. This was guilty pleasure of the highest order, and I can’t wait for more. Straight after finishing them, I ordered Lace 2 by Shirley Conran and Love Machine (no, not the Girls Aloud song) by Jacqueline Susann and they’re both now waiting for me. I will review Lace and Valley of the Dolls in my next blog post, as well as an update on TSB.

Liam x