BLONDE

I tried my best to finish this but it is just too painstaking to finish. Clearly focused on Monroe and the troubles Norma Jean went through to become Marilyn, it gets into so much detail and gets a bit gross at times that I could not get to the end. Maybe for others who love these type of long character life stories, but this book wasn't for me!

I’m a fan of Joyce Carol Oates, a writer whose ability to write dark literature and fantastical horror makes her perfect for this reimagining of Marilyn Monroe’s life. The book is long but never boring. Monroe is conceived as a true artist, absorbed by the meaning of life. Her striving for higher connection becomes a spur to her acting. In this, she is far more perspicacious than her male co-stars, who are mostly intent on technique and their next sexual conquest. Monroe’s drive for a bigger vision, for love and for motherhood, leaves her confused by the media’s relentless focus on the trivia of her life. She increasingly seeks solace in drugs as the weight of her exploitation by men and The Studio – and the neglect of her mother and absent father – bear down on her. Her fame eventually puts her into contact with the top echelons of American society, where she is violently and tragically abused. The ending leaves you in tears – although it’s worth knowing that this is almost certainly not how she died. Chilling, brilliant, recommended.

Sorry, but I could not continue with this book which is so well written and written without prurience. I could not continue to read of how Marilyn was so degraded by the Hollywood system and I know that there was to be no happy ending.This is not the fault of Joyce Carol Oates; she wrote as she found.

A huge book as JCO gives us a fictional re-imagining of Norma Jeane (sic) from her early childhood with a dangerous, mentally-unstable mother, via an orphanage, a foster home and, eventually, Hollywood - via numerous detours.JCO is especially interested in Norma Jeane's inner life and her relationships with men, all driven by her search for her absent father. I know little about Monroe so have no idea what is fact and what fiction but certainly this feels like a convincing portrait of a woman created and constructed as 'Marilyn Monroe'. Certainly the persona made millions for the studios (while Norma Jeane was paid a pittance) but it also served Norma Jeane herself, allowing her, to some extent, to keep her true self hidden - although, eventually, of course, it becomes erased...An intelligent analysis of a modern cultural icon, and a book which gives back attention to the woman behind the Monroe mask.

Returned because the print was just so small it wouldnt' have been a pleasure to read it

Albeit the book actually came a little early. But the condition is questionable. Especially on the cover, where there were dog ears and scuffs. I would have returned it, but i was eager to start. Wish I sourced a copy from Waterstones, or in my local bookshop.