Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox
Author(s): Lois W. Banner
Like her art, Marilyn Monroe was rooted in paradox: she was a powerful star and a childlike waif; a joyful, irreverent party girl with a deeply spiritual side; a superb friend and a narcissist; a dumb blonde and an intellectual. No previous biographer has recognised - much less attempted to analyse - most of these aspects of her personality. Lois Banner has. Since Marilyn's premature death in August of 1962, the appetite for information about the star has been insatiable. Biographies of Marilyn abound, and whether these books are sensational or flawed, Marilyn's fans have always come out in bestselling numbers. This time, with Lois Banner's Marilyn the fans won't be disappointed. This is no retread of recycled material. As one of the founders of the field of women's history, Banner reveals Marilyn Monroe in the way that only a top-notch historian and biographer could. In researching Marilyn, Banner's credentials opened doors. She gained access to Marilyn intimates who hadn't spoken to other biographers, and to private material unseen, ignored, or misinterpreted by her predecessors. With new details about Marilyn's childhood foster homes, her sexual abuse, her multiple marriages, her affairs, and her untimely death at the age of thirty-six, Marilyn is, at last, the nuanced biography Marilyn fans have been waiting for.
Product Information
With revelatory new information, from a leading feminist scholar and biographer, a nuanced and sympathetic biography of Marilyn Monroe to be published on the 50th anniversary of her death
MM--Personal offers a fascinating glimpse into an impossibly famous celebrity going about the business of living Wall Street Journal Studded with photos, many of them Monroe's personal items ... the overall vibe of the book is wrenching, because it clarifies Monroe's humanity, her working life, her normal day-to-day existence Liz Smith, praise for MM-Personal
Lois Banner is a founder of the field of women's history and cofounder of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, the major academic event in the field. She was the first woman president of the American Studies Association, and in 2006 she won the Bode-Pearson Prize for Lifetime Achievement. She is the author of ten books, including her acclaimed American Beauty and, most recently, MM--Personal, which reproduces and discusses items from Marilyn Monroe's personal archive. In addition to her books on Monroe, Banner is a major collector of her artifacts. Banner is a professor of history and gender studies at USC and lives in Southern California.
General Fields
- :
- : Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- : Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- : 30 June 2012
- : 234mm X 153mm
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 August 2012
- : books
Special Fields
- : Lois W. Banner
- : Hardback
- : 812
- : 791.43028092
- : 528
- : B&W art t/o; 1 16p B&W ins.; 1 8p 4/c ins.
