Into the Valley

THE SYMBOL by Alvah Bessie. 305 pages. Random House. $5.95.

This is a novel about the late Marilyn Monroe that unctuously professes to be about someone named Wanda Oliver. The cast of characters is identical with the people in Monroe's life--only their professions are sometimes different. Where Marilyn successively married a policeman, a pro baseball player and a writer, Wanda marries a sailor, a pro football player and an artist. The dust jacket crows that Bessie, a former Hollywood screenwriter, has "in an uncanny way" entered into his heroine's mind and heart. On the contrary. In a very canny way, Bessie has entered the valley of the dolls, where big money rewards trash.

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