Jacqueline Susann hated the film; after its November premiere aboard the passenger liner, "Princess Italia", she confronted the film's director, Mark Robson, and stated, "This picture is a piece of shit." In 2001, author Rae Lawrence published a continuation of "Valley of the Dolls", titled "Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls" (Crown), which was reputedly based on notes left by Susann for an intended sequel. In its review, "Publishers Weekly" stated, "This tedious, tame sequel is aptly titled, as it languishes deep in the shadow of the original... Susann's original still packs a wallop; the sequel is a pulled punch." Susann's second
Jacqueline Susann that it was one of "mental and spiritual incest." After her death, film critic Andrew Sarris pointed out that "If there is any single key to the oeuvre of Jacqueline Susann it is to be found in an extended Electra complex." As with her previous novels, reviews were negative (a writer for "The New York Times" complained of the book's "nearly 500 steadily monotonous pages"), but sales were spectacular: the book spent 36 weeks on the "New York Times" Best Seller List, eight of which were at #1, and became the second highest-selling novel of 1973. Susann, with this book,