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List Price: $16.95Amazon.com's Price: $12.38 You Save: $4.57 (27%)Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060934934
ISBN: 006093493X
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 752
Publication Date: 2001-04
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: April 10, 2001
Sales Rank: 77008
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In her most ambitious work to date, 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 twentieth-century American star.
Amazon.com Review:
Penzler Pick, April 2000: It is surprising and shocking to realize that Joyce Carol Oates, one of the great writers living today, has never made The New York Times bestseller list (at least not in recent memory). Far less talented (and less famous) authors have made it while she, in all likelihood not caring much, has been shut out. That could easily change with her new novel, Blonde, which may be the masterpiece of a staggeringly distinguished career.
This 700-plus-page tome is based on the life of (you guessed it) Marilyn Monroe. In fictional form, with names changed (husband Joe DiMaggio is referred to as 'The Ex-Athlete,' Arthur Miller as 'The Playwright,' John F. Kennedy as 'The President,' for example), this may be the most accurate and compelling portrait of this beautiful and complex woman that one is ever likely to read.
But why discuss it on the mystery page, you might well be asking yourself. It was the author's intent to structure the book as a mystery, and of course she succeeds, as she seems to succeed at everything she attempts in the world of letters. And there is a murder, apparently arranged by a secret government bureau (FBI? CIA?), although that could be the victim's hallucination. Of course, it could also be both real and hallucinated (remember, even paranoids have enemies).
If you like biographies, you'll like Blonde. If you like novels, you'll like Blonde. If you like mysteries, you'll like Blonde. And if you fear that more than 700 pages by one of the greatest of living literary lions might be tough slogging, here's a little excerpt from the chapter titled 'The President's Pimp:'
Sure he was a pimp.
But not just any pimp. Not him!
He was a pimp par excellence. A pimp nonpareil. A pimp sui generis. A pimp with a wardrobe, and a pimp with style. A pimp with a classy Brit accent. Posterity would honor him as the President's Pimp.
A man of pride and stature: the President's Pimp.
At Rancho Mirage in Palm Springs in March 1962 there was the President poking him in the ribs with a low whistle. 'That blonde. That's Marilyn Monroe?'
He told the President yes it was. Monroe, a friend of his. Luscious, eh? But a little crazy.
Thoughtfully, the President asked, 'Have I dated her yet?'
Nothing inaccessible about Joyce Carol Oates, especially in this most readable and relentlessly fascinating study of the lovely woman with whom the whole country was at least a little in love. --Otto Penzler
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A Dream-like Portrayal
I had very mixed feelings about this book. While I was completely intrigued by Norma Jean/Marilyn, I was disconcerted about the style. It is written in a very dream-like prose, often shifting perspectives and form. Oates portrays Monroe as a very sympathetic character, an innocent Norma Jean who is only playing the roll of Marilyn as she would any other roll in a movie. But she tries so hard to prove she is not as dumb and naïve as people would think, while at the same time contradicting herself ... Read More
Rating:  - Ambivalent
Ambivalent because that's how the book left me. Maybe confused, certainly affected. I had not read Joyce Carol Oates before and have always been curious what attracted her fans.
"Blonde" has a certain 21st century Virginia Woolf style. But, whereas Virginia Woolf was more poetic in her prose, and wrote in a dreamier, drawn-out style, Joyce Carol Oates tends to shout when she writes, seeming to be concerned that the reader might not understand her point.
A fictionalized biography ... Read More
Rating:  - Complete Fabrication
I saw the movie and it was horrible. Marilyn Monroe was a real person who does not settle for abuse. The author is a woman who has no respect and is incorporating her own sex life in the book. As a English Literature major I can tell she is suffering from a lack of sex. But I know that there are good writers out there who write Marilyn out of love and respect and do their homework.
Rating:  - Getting used to author's writing style
When I first picked up the book (hardcover), the size of it almost made me put it down...738 pages! Yikes! Who has the time? In this day and age of quick gratification (and getting to the point), this one had better be good! So, I read it, and (yawn) I read some more. It was hard to keep my eyes opened in the beginning. The paragraphs were all very long, with mishmash of dialogues. Never the one to give up (especially with such an interesting character as Marilyn Monroe!), I hang in there. And I'm glad ... Read More
Rating: - Potentially Oates's Best, But Too Tawdry, and Too Graphic
This novel by Oates includes many of Oates's strengths as a writer; and, who is not interested in Marilyn Monroe? All in all, it is one of Oates's most interesting novels from a research viewpoint and she tries to get into Marilyn's head and fill in the details - albeit fictional. I thought that she failed to do so. She spent a lot of time on the small sexual details. Do we really want to know "how" the head of a studio had sex with her, and what position they were in, etc., etc.... and you can fill in the details ... Read More
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Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060934934
ISBN: 006093493X
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 752
Publication Date: 2001-04
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: April 10, 2001
Sales Rank: 77008
Studio: Harper Perennial