Blonde Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Blonde Book

In Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates--one of America's most prestigious and versatile writers, author of numerous novels and short fictions--joins the ranks of those who have competed to tell the story of one of her nation's most compelling legends: Norma Jeane Baker, or Marilyn Monroe. In her "Author's Note" to this monumental novel, Oates describes the work as a "radically distilled life in the form of fiction". "For all its length", she continues (the book is over 700 pages long), "synecdoche is the principle of appropriation". No straightforward account of a life, then--supposing such a feat were possible--Blonde is both fragmentary and exhaustive, fictional and historical. Divided into five chronological sections from "The Child 1932-1938" to "The Afterlife 1959-1962", the narrative voice shifts from first to third-person perspective, telling of a life that, from the start, is bound to the fascinations of cinema: "This movie I've been seeing all my life, yet never to its completion". Almost she might say: "This movie is my life!" In Oates's revision of "Marilyn", that fascination is, in turn, bound to Norma Jeane's painful, and paradoxical, tie to her mother: "When I was born, on June 1, 1926, in the charity ward of the Los Angeles County Hospital, my mother wasn't there". Being loved as an actress, being loved as a child, are crucial themes of Blonde, themes which agitate throughout Oates's telling of Baker's drive to fame and love, to "Daddy" and babies--"Except if Daddy could make her pregnant she would love Daddy again"--to beauty and death. It's the stuff of sensation and scandal, but Oates's reading of her subject is tactful, empathetic and, above all, alert to the complex femininity now carried through the life and image of Marilyn Monroe. --Vicky LebeauRead More

from£10.29 | RRP: £9.99
* Excludes Voucher Code Discount Also available Used from £3.22
  • TheBookPeople

    'Nobody has ever caught Marilyn more brilliantly in words than Oates.' John Sutherland, Sunday Times 'Oates has been fearless in taking on a subject that criss-crossed almost every important strand of mid twentieth century history ...Apart from her, only Don Delillo, among today's American novelists, and no one at all among today's American women novelists, would be able to handle such a huge cast of imagined and real characters ...A mighty - and a mesmerising - book.' Elaine Showalter, Literary Review 'This novel deserves a wide audience. Blonde is what whole shelvesful of Monroe biographies should be but are not - a fabulous reinvention of the life of a fabulous reinvention, a mirror on our collective vanities and a cracking page turner to boot.' Evening Standard 'Blonde is an epic achievement, a masterpiece, a piece of art so shatteringly well-conceived and lavishly-wrought that at times it almost does not seem like a mere book ...If this book doesn't catapult Joyce Carol Oates into British best sellerdom, nothing will. Julie Myerson, Independent on Sunday 'Novelists such as John Updike, Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer slug it out for the title of the Great American Novelist. But maybe they're wrong. Maybe, just maybe, the Great American Novelist is a woman.' The Herald

  • Foyles

    NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM, STARRING ANA DE ARMAS, ADRIEN BRODY, BOBBY CANNAVALE AND JULIANNE NICHOLSON, DIRECTED BY ANDREW DOMINIK‘A torrentially imaginative, compulsively readable tour de force’ Sunday Telegraph‘A fabulous reinvention of the life of a fabulous reinvention, and a cracking page-turner to boot’ Evening StandardBlonde is a mesmerising novel about the most enduring and evocative cultural icon of the 20th century: the woman who became Marilyn Monroe. A fragile and gifted young woman, Norma Jeane Baker makes and remakes her identity: she is the orphan whose mother is declared mad; the woman who changes her name to be an actress; the fated celebrity, lover and muse. Told in her voice, Blonde shows a culture hypnotised by its own myths, and the devastating effects it had on Hollywood’s greatest star.‘This masterpiece about Marilyn Monroe’s life is audacious, gripping and clever’ Rose Tremain‘If you haven’t read Joyce Carol Oates before, start here, and now’ Independent

  • BookDepository

    Blonde : Paperback : HarperCollins Publishers : 9781841153728 : : 04 Mar 2010 : NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM, STARRING ANA DE ARMAS, ADRIEN BRODY, BOBBY CANNAVALE AND JULIANNE NICHOLSON, DIRECTED BY ANDREW DOMINIK 'A torrentially imaginative, compulsively readable tour de force' Sunday Telegraph

  • Waterstones

    A sweeping, mesmerising novel of the most enduring and evocative cultural icon of the 20th century. Joyce Carol Oates' masterpiece is a brilliant and deeply moving portrait of a culture hypnotised by its own myths and the shattering reality of the pe

  • Blackwell

    A mesmerising novel of the most enduring cultural icon of the 20th century, Blonde is a deeply moving portrait of the woman who became Marilyn Monroe. A mesmerising novel of the most enduring cultural icon of the 20th century, Blonde is a deeply...

  • ASDA

    Joyce Carol Oates's novel is a portrait of a culture hypnotized by its own myths and the shattering reality of the personal effects it had on the woman who became Marilyn Monroe.

  • 1841153729
  • 9781841153728
  • Joyce Carol Oates
  • 5 March 2001
  • Fourth Estate
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 960
  • New edition
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. If you click through any of the links below and make a purchase we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you). Click here to learn more.

Would you like your name to appear with the review?

We will post your book review within a day or so as long as it meets our guidelines and terms and conditions. All reviews submitted become the licensed property of www.find-book.co.uk as written in our terms and conditions. None of your personal details will be passed on to any other third party.

All form fields are required.