Blonde by Joyce Oates

Blonde

Joyce Oates

The heartbreaking tale of a little girl who never really grew up, searching for the love denied her by an absent father in a series of unsuitable husbands and lovers. The author switches between first and third person narrative as she charts Norma Jean's rise and ultimate fall - a convincing and clever technique. Don't let the size of this book put you off; it's big in every sense of the word. It's also interesting trying to guess the identities of the 'real' people she identifies only with a letter or a title.

Extract
Norma Jean spoke without knowing what she said. With a part of her mind she seemed to know how implausible it was, preposterous, her plan to have a baby. A baby, and no husband? If only she'd married Mr Shinn. If only V had loved her a little more, he might have married her. It would be the end of her career. Even if, in haste, she married one of the Gemini, the scandal would destroy her. Marilyn Monroe, newly famous, a balloon inflated by the media, would be gleefully destroyed by the media.
Parallels
  • The Marilyn Diaries by Charles Casillo
  • Candle in the Wind - the song
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Explicit sexual content