Valley of the Diverse

In a recent essay, English professor David Trinidad shows us how the teaching of literature has evolved using Jacqueline Susann’s 1967 novel Valley of the Dolls as a window on the culture. “What would an academic have said, then, about Valley of the Dolls?” he posits in the May 30 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. “It has no literary merit,” is the reply he envisions.

By way of contrast, Trinidad suggests, pedagogues can now say, “It’s trash, and I love it. And I’m going to teach a course on it.”

Trinidad, who teaches at Columbia College, clearly identifies with the latter school of thought. “In 1997 I found myself on the stage of the Tishman Auditorium at the New School, as part of ‘The Other Jackie,’ a discussion of the enduring influence of Jacqueline Susann,” he shares.

Trinidad himself was, in a way, present at the creation. “There would be 11 printings of the hardcover edition before, on July 5, 1967 (the day the British parliament decriminalized homosexuality), the Bantam paperback edition of Valley of the Dolls was released,” Trinidad recalls. “I was about to turn 14.”

He practically grew up with the book. “I have made something of a career out of dwelling on the things that, as a child and teenager, I was not allowed to possess: Barbie, Yardley of London cosmetics, other boys, and Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls,” he writes. “Which means I grew up to be a homosexual who collects stuff from the 60s.”

“And a poet who’s written about the desire and ambivalence such stuff stirs up.” He has also taught at The New School, Rutgers, Princeton and Antioch (Los Angeles).

His Columbia website only notes that he is known as “a master of the postmodern pop-culture sublime.” “His work is also associated with the innovative formalism of the New York School,” according to the website.

Such platitudes do little to delineate his consuming interests, the ones we note above.

Ironically, neither do his internet ratings, mixed though they may be. Nevertheless, his rate-my-professor reviews give a glimpse of his teaching style:

• “He’s a great poet and he hangs with lots of other great poets,” one reviewer wrote. “This leads to juicy gossip…”

• “David’s a great poet but a bit of an airhead,” wrote another. “Don’t expect his undivided attention.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.