JACKIE

It’s been so long since I have thought about Jacqueline Susann.

I remember reading her when I was 16. I did it by mistake. I liked the name of the book, which was THE LOVE MACHINE.

I was wondering what kind of a machine that would be. And lo and behold, I don’t think I really ever found out anything about that.

I do remember reading about vitamin shots, which were dangerous I think, and were probably amphetamines. Also, a really old guy sleeping with a really young woman. I am probably wrong about this, but I think her name was April.

The only other thing I remember is lots of chest hair. For some reason, I think it was grey. That’s one of the big reasons why I don’t really want to go back and read THE LOVE MACHINE again, although I do find myself thinking about Jacqueline Susann upon occasion.

I think she had a unhappy life. Then it was happy, and then she died. Although it was all probably more complicated* than that, don’t you think? It has to be more complicated than that if you have a name like Jacqueline Susann**.


* complicated = bisexual

* *I did a little research on this and discovered that I was pretty much wrong about everything. “April” was actually “January,” “The Love Machine” was actually “Once Is Not Enough,” and Jacqueline Susann had an affair with Coco Chanel and Ethel Merman, not, well, I don’t know who else she had affairs with–do you? Also, the book had better names for men than for women. Case in point: Tom Colt. The one thing I got right was the chest hair. There was definitely a lot of chest hair, mostly on Tom Colt. I have a good memory for chest hair.