THE LOVE MACHINE. Jacqueline Susann. Simon and Schuster; 1969.
Jacqueline Susann followed up her smash bestseller -- a highly entertaining potboiler -- Valley of the Dolls with this well-plotted anti-romance. Although the main character, TV personality and producer Robin Stone, is a man, Love Machine follows the Dolls formula with its story of three women who fall in love with Robin. Robin describes television itself as being a "love machine," but the term is used by the press and gossip columnists for Stone himself.
Susann was excoriated by the critics, not only for her unapologetically undistinguished if functional prose style, but for the fact that a woman dared to write about sex in all its facets and employ four-letter words to boot. Admittedly Harold Robbins was never seen as any kind of great writer, but he was not necessarily taken to task for any vulgarity, as Susann was. Whatever her flaws as a writer, Susann was an excellent storyteller, kept things moving in a generally unpredictable fashion, and created believable, three-dimensional characters. Her dialogue also rings true more often than not.
The three women who fall for Robin include the model Amanda, the actress Maggie, and the bosses wife, Judith. My favorite character, however, is Ethel, a plain publicity woman determined to have it all despite her lack of beauty, and who hooks up with a second-rate singer, Christie Lane, who becomes a TV star. As for Robin, you get the impression that Susann doesn't quite understand him any more than Robin understands himself, and there are chapters where he undergoes psychoanalysis and even travels to discover more of his background and what makes him tick. He has qualities that are both admirable and just the opposite.
Although Robin is neither gay nor bisexual, there is some interesting LGBT stuff, especially as Love Machine was published the very year of Stonewall. Robin becomes friends with a handsome gay Italian, Sergio, who is the caregiver for Robin's adoptive mother. He basically has a positive if somewhat patronizing attitude towards this character. Learning that Sergio undressed him after he passed out, he implies that Sergio may have had his way with him. Sergio asks Robin if he would take advantage of a drunken woman, and wonders why he would assume that he, Sergio, would. In another sequence, Robin has hot sex with a woman who turns out to be transgender, but learning the truth does not anger him. The book is, of course, full of a lot of typically sixties negativity about LGBT matters -- and the word "faggot" is used far too often -- but in other ways Susann was a bit ahead of her time.
Although Susann can't resist going the soap opera route in certain areas -- one major character is a Kay Kendall-type whose fatal illness is hidden by her loved ones -- the book contains some sharp and satirical observations. I even confess I found the ending moving.
Verdict: No literary genius, perhaps, but the woman could tell a good story. Much better than the film adaptation. ***.
