Blonde
A Novel
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3.7 • 78 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The National Book Award finalist and national bestseller exploring the life and legend of Marilyn Monroe
Now a Netflix Film starring Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale and Julianne Nicholson
In one of her most ambitious works, Joyce Carol Oates boldly reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker—the child, the woman, the fated celebrity, and idolized blonde the world came to know as Marilyn Monroe. In a voice startlingly intimate and rich, Norma Jeane tells her own story of an emblematic American artist—intensely conflicted and driven—who had lost her way. A powerful portrait of Hollywood’s myth and an extraordinary woman’s heartbreaking reality, Blonde is a sweeping epic that pays tribute to the elusive magic and devastation behind the creation of the great 20th-century American star.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Marilyn Monroe comes across as much more than a beloved movie star in this riveting novel inspired by the icon’s life. Joyce Carol Oates uses her storytelling chops to imagine the innermost thoughts of Marilyn and those around her. We follow as the optimistic girl born Norma Jeane Mortenson attends endless Hollywood auditions with vile men, eventually becoming a 20th-century superstar. Oates pulls us right into the callous, misogynistic world of Hollywood’s supposed golden age, never shying away from the vicious words or actions of those who saw the young star as a mere commodity—or worse. Even so, we loved being inside Marilyn’s head and feeling her lust for life and moving need to belong. Blonde is a powerful vision of the woman behind the sex symbol.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Atkinson narrates Oates's fictional biography of Marilyn Monroe in an intense, slightly husky voice that immediately grabs and holds the listener's attention. Film actress Atkinson deftly switches back and forth between Oates's prose, a breathy Monroe (who "comments" periodically throughout the novel), Monroe's brassy mother, Gladys (who soon succumbs to mental illness), and a series of powerful, impatient men who callously exploit the vulnerable young actress. Her only false note is the dialogue of John F. Kennedy, which she reads without any attempt at the president's distinctive Massachusetts accent. Abridging Oates's epic is no small feat, but all the major events in Monroe's life remain in vivid and often heartbreaking detail. The audio also includes an exclusive interview with Oates, who talks about her impressions of Monroe as a person and as an icon, and discusses how she came to write the 700-plus- page novel, which she originally intended as a 175-page novella. Based on the HarperCollins/ Ecco hardcover (Forecasts, Feb. 14).
Customer Reviews
Blonde
I have never been disappointed by a novel by Joyce Carol Oates! Her story of Marilyn Monroe is fascinating and tender. It is such a sad story. But Oates make us love Marilyn as Norma Jean. She and Elton John have this in common.