Once Is Not Enough
Grove Reissue
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| Author | Jacqueline Susann |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | William Morrow |
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Publication date
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March 1973 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 467 pp (First edition, cloth) |
| Preceded by | The Love Machine |
| Followed by | Dolores |
Once Is Not Enough is the third novel by Jacqueline Susann, following her huge best sellers Valley of the Dolls (1966) and The Love Machine (1969). With Once Is Not Enough, Susann became the first writer in publishing history to have three consecutive #1 novels on the New York Times best seller list.
The young and beautiful January Wayne, daughter of stage and film producer Mike Wayne, returns home to New York City after being hospitalized in Switzerland for nearly three years. But home is not what it used to be: the world which January knew has changed considerably.
As the naive January finds her way in this brave new world, she encounters such mortal souls as Deirdre Milford Granger, the fifth richest woman in the world, as well as Deirdre's virile young cousin, David Milford; Linda Riggs, the vulgar but successful editor of Gloss magazine; Tom Colt, the macho novelist who harbors a secret; and Dr. Preston Alpert, the dirty but invigorating "Dr. Feelgood." Also in the mix is Karla, the reclusive former movie queen who has more than one secret of her own.
It's a world of money and spiritual incest, of drugs and frontal nudity, in a complex story which reflects the social upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Jacqueline Susann initially called the novel The Big Man, but changed her mind after visiting comedian Joe E. Lewis on his deathbed. Lewis, who had famously said, "You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough," apparently reconsidered, for he told Susann, "Once is not enough."
Susann was diagnosed with cancer two months before the book's scheduled publication date. Her usual efforts at promotion--including a grueling book tour--had to be curtailed. But Susann soldiered on; as her husband, Irving Mansfield, said, "The day the book came out, she was booked on the Today show. She left Doctors Hospital after a blood transfusion, did the show, walked around the corner, got into an ambulance and went back to the hospital.”
Susann was candid about the theme of the book, stating 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."
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