Word: marilyns
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...with the sanction of a novelist was going to look into the unspoken impulses of some of his real characters. At the end, if successful, he would have offered a literary hypothesis of a possible Marilyn Monroe who might have lived and fit most of the facts available. If his instincts were good, than future facts discovered about her would not have to war with the character he created...
Coming off a long string of successes in the nonfiction phase-second act if you please. This time around he has struck one of the main veins of the American consciousness with a biography of Marilyn Monroe, and he has mastered the art of eliciting a much vaster response with much less effort. Marilyn: a biography by Norman Mailer with pictures by the World's Greatest Photographers has made shock waves which have surpassed those the author is accustomed to creating in the literary pond, and has indeed touched the fancy of the masses...
THESE METAPHORS held up when he was writing about himself, but with Marilyn, Mailer has tread over a few ethical lines that, if they aren't legally or morally reprehensible, do vitiate his professional powers...
...introduction to Marilyn, Mailer freely admits that the major portion of his sources for the book were two previously written works on Monroe--Norma Jean, by Fred Guiles, and Marilyn Monroe by Maurice Zolotow. Mailer said he first contracted to write a preface to this collection of over a hundred photographs organized by photographer and entrepreneur Larry Schiller because he needed money. $50,000 for 25,000 words in two months, and Mailer could once again make the alimony payment to his four former wives, repay his agent, Scott Meredith, and as he revealed on the Cavett show...
...trouble with the formulation of this book is a philosophical premise that Mailer, in his God's Own Fool honesty, declares in the introduction, the trouble with trying the write a biography of Marilyn Monroe is that her life was based on the publicity of a string of newspaper gossip column lies which struck their way into the American consciousness deeper than the quiet facts. As her fame increased, Monroe became immersed in these tangled stories, living some...