Looking for Mr. Goodbar to these events, which the book details, Theresa is a child suffering from ugly duckling syndrome, followed by an ordeal as an adult in college in which she is engaged in a committed relationship with a married man who is using her as a companion. The relationship ends, and Theresa experiences a bevy of sexual encounters that are fleeting and pathological. By 1973, having published three novels, Judith Rossner was a writer of "impeccable literary credentials." Invited by Nora Ephron to contribute to a special women's issue of "Esquire" magazine, Rossner wrote an article about a real-life murder that had
The Spy Who Loved Me (novel) cunning author write up a bit instead of down?" The critic for "The Times" was not dismissive of Bond, whom they describe as "less a person than a cult" who is "ruthlessly, fashionably efficient in both love and war". Rather, the critic dismisses the experiment, writing that "the novel lacks Mr. Fleming's usual careful construction and must be written off as a disappointment". John Fletcher thought that it was "as if Mickey Spillane had tried to gatecrash his way into the Romantic Novelists' Association". Philip Stead, writing in "The Times Literary Supplement" considered the novel to be "a morbid version