THE LOVE MACHINE

by Jacqueline Susann ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1969

For an appetitive audience, reading Valley of the Dolls was a mindlessly ongoing enterprise comparable to eating peanuts. The same cannot really be said for The Love Machine in which the automated inference of the title is much more apparent while dealing with the same material--more guys--more dolls--more celebs (an alternate spelling, slobs). Any itinerary seems rather fruitless except to test the integrity of the reviewer: well there's newscaster Robin, he's the love machine, ""everything locked in"" while he's able to put out all the time; and Amanda, a model, who really loved him during the two years which ended with her leukemia; and Maggie Stewart, who wants him to need her as well as want her, and heads from a sterile marriage toward Hollywood fame; and Judith, wife of Robin's network producer, who has all kinds of cosmetic surgery (she needs it at fifty) and speaking of that, there's even a His-or-Her Christine incident in Hamburg. While in Rome, by the way, in one of Miss Susann's careless moments, Robin writes an express check for four thousand dollars. It won't matter at all. The packaged big sell has been going on for over a year and this is the girl who programmed the earlier book all the way up to her beaming assertion that ""Happiness is Being Number One."" To others, the actual achievement may seem more merit-ricious.

Pub Date: May 1, 1969

ISBN: 0802135447

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1969

Categories: FICTION