The Love Machine (novel) The Love Machine (novel) The Love Machine is the second novel by Jacqueline Susann, the follow-up to her enormously successful "Valley of the Dolls" (1966). Published by Simon & Schuster in 1969, the book was a "New York Times" #1 best seller. "The Love Machine" tells the story of ruthless, haunted Robin Stone and his life and career in the cut-throat world of 1960s network television. Handsome but promiscuous, the latter earning his nickname the Love Machine after he describes television with the same sobriquet, Robin is loved beyond all reason by three women: Amanda, the beautiful but doomed fashion
Jacqueline Susann by Bernard Geis on February 10, 1966, and "took off like a Cape Canaveral space shot." The story was said to be a "roman à clef", with characters in the novel reportedly based on real-life celebrities such as Judy Garland, Dean Martin, and Ethel Merman. Although "Publishers Weekly", in an advance review, called the novel "powerful and sometimes fascinating," the book received largely negative reviews. Gloria Steinem panned the book in "The New York Herald Tribune" as did the reviewer in "The New York Times". "Time" magazine called it the "Dirty Book of the Month," and said, "it might more