Jacqueline Susann of her own books. "Valley of the Dolls" spans twenty years (1945–1965) in the lives of three young women: Anne Welles, the New England beauty who liberates herself from her staid small town by coming to New York, where she falls in love with the dashing Lyon Burke; Neely O'Hara, an ebullient vaudevillian who becomes a Hollywood star and self-destructs; and Jennifer North, a showgirl with little talent but a gorgeous face and figure, who becomes a friend to both. All three women fall prey to the "dolls," amphetamines and barbiturates, a euphemism which Susann coined. The book was published
Susann Cokal Susann Cokal Susann Cokal is an American author and academic. She is best known for having written the novels "The Kingdom of Little Wounds", "Mirabilis", and "Breath and Bones", along with short stories, literary and pop-culture criticism, and book reviews. "The Kingdom of Little Wounds" won a Printz silver medal from the American Library Association in 2014. Cokal contributed short stories to anthologies and journals including "Prairie Schooner", "Hayden's Ferry Review", "Bellevue Literary Review", "The Cincinnati Review", and Ohio State University's "The Journal". She also contributed essays about contemporary writers to "Critique", "Scandinavian Studies", "Texas Studies in Literature and Language",