The Love Machine (novel) only one which has at its center a male character. It was, Susann stated, an "attempt to get inside of men's ids." It's also the only Susann novel with an ostensibly happy ending. Susann dedicated the book to her friend Carol Bjorkman, a columnist for "Women's Wear Daily", who died of leukemia in 1967. Critical reception of "The Love Machine" was not positive, but it was slightly better than that of "Valley of the Dolls." Although Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of "The New York Times" wrote that the novel "is popcorn... the kernel of an idea, the seed of an inspiration, exploded
Jacqueline Susann 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." As with her previous novels, reviews were negative (a writer for "The New York Times" complained of the book's "nearly 500 steadily monotonous pages"), but sales were spectacular: the book spent 36 weeks on the "New York Times" Best Seller List, eight of which were at #1, and became the second highest-selling novel of 1973. Susann, with this book,