Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is an American prolific author, poet, and playwright.
One of her favourite techniques is the investigation of the dark sides of an event or celebrity, a quasi-judicial inquiry. This is what happens in Blonde. She warns at the very beginning that her novel is a work of fiction, not a biography of Marilyn Monroe, although it is stated that “many of the characters portrayed here have some counterparts in [her] life and times”. To be fair, the novel demonstrates great historical accuracy, though surely some distortion, or rather a deliberate selection in the facts listed is apparent. I remember that right after she died, there was gossip spread far and away about a purported nude pool scene for the upcoming movie Something’s Got to Give and the most popular Italian weekly of the time, Catholic-oriented, hasted to point out that there was no nude scene, only a skimpy, flesh-tinted bathing suit. At the time, one couldn’t just throw a celebrity under the bus. Anyway. In the literary supplement of Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, there’s an interview with philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis; on the back of his portrait is a large-scale photograph of Marilyn.
Oates’ novel begins with Marilyn’s death: “Yes, I saw Death. I’d dreamt of Death the night before. Many nights before. I was not afraid.” There goes the conspiracy theory, which hurts the American conscience so badly. Two and a half pages are dedicated to Marilyn’s first period, and reflections of a candid girl in the 1950s, who is horrified when he overhears boys talking: “Look at the ass on that one, the little blonde!” Marilyn’s annus horribilis, 1947, is hinted to as notes in a hypothetical diary of hers. This does not surprise us, since Oates admitted she fell in love with fifteen-year-old Norma Jeane Baker after she saw her participating in a beauty pageant in California in 1941.
All in all, the novel is quite good in all its 750 pages, though be warned, this comes from a man who still loves Cinderella and Snow White.