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Blonde
Blonde
Blonde
Audiobook (abridged)8 hours

Blonde

Written by Joyce Carol Oates

Narrated by Jayne Atkinson

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

The National Book Award finalist and national bestseller exploring the life and legend of Marilyn Monroe

Soon to be a Netflix Film starring Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale and Julianne Nicholson

In one of her most ambitious works, Joyce Carol Oates boldly reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker—the child, the woman, the fated celebrity, and idolized blonde the world came to know as Marilyn Monroe. In a voice startlingly intimate and rich, Norma Jeane tells her own story of an emblematic American artist—intensely conflicted and driven—who had lost her way. A powerful portrait of Hollywood’s myth and an extraordinary woman’s heartbreaking reality, Blonde is a sweeping epic that pays tribute to the elusive magic and devastation behind the creation of the great 20th-century American star. 

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateSep 21, 2004
ISBN9780060794002
Blonde
Author

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is a novelist, critic, playwright, poet and author of short stories and one of America’s most respected literary figures. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University and a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction.

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Reviews for Blonde

Rating: 3.9488735164644715 out of 5 stars
4/5

577 ratings30 reviews

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Abridged? This is not what the author wrote. It's enough of a cheat to cancel my subscription.

    4 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    IT IS ABRIDGED! I LISTEN TO AUDIOBOOKS WHILE I READ THE ACTUAL BOOK.
    WHAT A SHAM

    2 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I chose this audiobook because I heard it listed by several sources as an official biography so I expected a traditional biography about MM's life but this is anything but. It's an entire book full of prose based on the author's imagining of what her life may have been like. There aren't any facts so you're left wondering what really happened which is not what I expected from a "biography". The prose itself isn't unpleasant to listen to, and for that reason I finished the book, but don't expect a factual retelling of MM's life. Hopefully someone else can write a real biography on her.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates is a 2017 Ecco Publication. Let me begin by saying I have had this book on my TBR list long before a Netflix movie was even thought of. I was advised that reading a good traditional biography about Marilyn Monroe before starting this one would be a good idea, so, dutifully, I squeezed in a lengthy biography over Monroe, back in the spring. (Marilyn: The Biography by Donald Spoto) Truthfully, that book was depressing, and I needed a little break before tackling this tome about Marilyn.But then the rumors I’d heard about a Netflix movie based on this book started heating up and I wanted to read this book before I saw the movie, so I put everything else aside and got started on it. I was only about halfway into the book when the movie premiered- Then the reviews started flooding in…And it wasn’t pretty: Exploitation, a three-hour long slog, and a shocking NC-17 rating. Oy! This prompted me to peek at the ratings for this book. Curious- on Goodreads, this book has over twelve thousand ratings and boasts a 4.01 average- which is pretty darned good, actually. So maybe this is another one of those instances where the movie was LOOSELY based on this novel and maybe it took more liberties with the book than JCO did with Marilyn’s life. (JCO claims she had nothing to do with the film and even she had to take a break from its brutality)I haven’t seen the movie, at this writing, and now I can’t say I’m in a hurry to do so- though I might change my mind later- but there are a few things to keep in mind if one is considering reading the book the film is based on. Readers have long lamented movie adaptations of books and the material- or any material for that matter, based on Marilyn Monroe is going to be exploitive, because frankly, Marilyn and exploitation always went hand in hand during her life, and long after her death. Another thing to consider is that the masses seldom do their homework before watching a movie based on a book. I'll go out on a limb here and say that I suspect very few of the critics- and none the outspoken Twitter crowd, have read Marilyn's biography, or this book, before watching the film. Just something to keep in mind. This book, like any other book of historical fiction based on real people, has taken liberties- sometimes with times, or places, events, and most certainly with the facts- more so than most, I’d say. Some authors like to make their fictionalized versions of a person’s life as close to reality as possible, while others go so far as to completely re-imagine someone’s life. I think JCO did a little of both here. Some parts of the novel are total fabrications- completely made-up out of whole cloth, but in other areas, the people are familiar- if not named outright- and the scenes described are authentic- and those are the ones people object to the most. Sadly, as much as we would like to believe differently, the book in many ways probably hits a little too close to the bone and most people don't want to believe that, preferring to hold on to a fantasy image of the late star, instead. Yes, it’s brutal, but the book shows the ‘Blonde actress’ as a separate entity from Norma Jeane- and it is Norma Jeane, and her private battles that take center stage here.I really do think Marilyn was an unhappy person- her non-fictional biography certainly gives off that vibe- But putting those truths into JCO hands, is sure to expand on that vibe exponentially- something those familiar her literary style can attest to, I'm sure. This novel is dark and heavy- and though the accusations of exploitation nearly always has some merit- I think that the author’s distinction between the public persona and Norma Jeane diminished that to some degree-rather showing how the actress was exploited by Hollywood and the toll it took on her personal life, which was already marred by a myriad of other demons, in my opinion, at least. All that said, this is an interesting take on the life of the ‘Blonde Actress’ and the woman behind the image. The approach is idiosyncratic and does require one to pay attention, read between the lines, and remain open to JCO interpretation of Marilyn- because that isn’t always easy. Was the book what I was expecting? No, not really. Did I like it? In some ways, yes, and in other ways, no. I’m glad I read it, as I’ve been curious about it for ages- but I do think that now, after spending a fair amount of time with Marilyn this year- I’m inclined to agree that it is well past time to let both the ‘Blonde Actress’ and Norma Jeane finally rest in peace…3.5 stars
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    [Blonde] by [[Joyce Carol Oates]][Blonde] is an epic fictional biography of the life of Norma Jean Baker, better known as Marilyn Monroe. The book covers her life from birth to death in great detail, creating a compelling picture of a woman whose troubled childhood and then abuse by the film industry led to her downfall and death. I knew very little about Marilyn Monroe, and now I realize that nobody, maybe even not Norma Jean herself, knew Monroe. JCO's portrait reveals a woman so used to being constructed by everyone around her that there ends up being almost no person underneath to know. This is incredibly sad and hard to read about. I thought a lot about the intense sexism and control that men had over women, even famous and supposedly powerful women. There is also a focus on how a troubled childhood leads to a damaged adult. In some ways, I loved this book. But I also was somewhat bored in sections. It is a really long book - over 700 pages of a small font - and in certain sections I felt like I didn't need to read more because I already got what JCO was going for. But, then again, it ends up being an incredibly convincing portrait and in that way is masterfully written. I didn't like her version of the ending, i.e. Marilyn's death.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a novel about Marilyn Monroe and is written by Joyce Carol Oates which tells you pretty much all you need to know about it, except it's also pretty long. And the length did something to me as I read. Oates's ability to dig into the unsavory corners and to lean into the uncomfortable, combined with the stark facts of Monroe's life became, for me, an utterly immersive reading experience, where I thought about this book even while I wasn't reading it. I raced through it, until I neared the end, where I found myself slowing down, unwilling to let go of the hope that the novel ended with Monroe living happily in a farmhouse with lots of babies, doing some community playhouse as her hobby. And of course I knew all along that that was never going to be the ending, but Oates had drawn me so deeply into this damaged woman's life that I couldn't help but hope.The facts of Monroe's life are well-known and so Oates plays with them, changing the story in ways small and large, to show the long-term effects of unaddressed childhood trauma. But JCO is also looking at all the ways Monroe was used and victimized, and how she refused to see herself as the victim, working relentlessly to make a place for herself, until the sheer weight of it all dragged her under. There's a new sub-genre of books by women, about women who ruin their own lives and it strikes me that although this book is two decades older than that trend, it wouldn't be out of place among them.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The author really manages to get into the head of the main character and generally gets it right. Fantastically written manages capture the era well.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I knew very little about the life of Marilyn Monroe, but I had heard about this book. Indeed, Joyce Carol Oates does a remarkable job of showing us how, from her earliest days, Norma Jeane's "self", was never one integrated whole. She was at times her little girl self, at other times the self that other people wanted her to be and the self she presented to the world. It was exhausting and, ultimately, destructive. Oates allows the reader into the thoughts of the "Blonde", as well as into the thoughts of the people who were part of her life for better or worse. While the book kept me interested and curious, it was also very, very depressing from start to finish. Oates warns the reader in the preface that this is a work of fiction and though it follows Norma Jeane's biography fairly closely, it is not a reliable source for information on NJ, though it reads as if this must have been what it was like, what she thought, how people treated her. After finishing the book, I looked up some of the people that were important in her life, and was shocked that a major character (a real person) who dies about a year before she does in the book and provides a devastating revelation, actually died about 6 years after she did and thus deflates much of what his death would have meant to her. I did watch "Some Like it Hot", which I'd never seen before (I'd only ever seen "Seven Year Itch" which is charming) and thought it was a horribly sexist movie -- not very funny. The book does make me want to watch her other films, especially the early ones and "The Misfits".
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a book. A great American novel that makes her life the epic it deserves, and lays bare the sickness beneath the artifice in American culture from the '30s to the '60s, culminating with her death shortly after being paraded out to sing "Happy Birthday" for the President while she was barely able to function. In a career of great novels, many call this JCO's masterpiece, and I've only read six or so, but this is an incredible accomplishment. Even if you aren't interested in Monroe, it is beautiful, tragic, compelling reading.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A stunning, dream-like evocation of the life of Norma Jean & her creation: Marilyn Monroe. Based on extensive research, Oates gives a fictionalised imagining of Marilyn, from unloved & abused child onwards. Oates’s writing creates the inward world of Marilyn & at the same time the various affects she had on others. And, 700 odd pages later, I know much more about the life of the troubled, luminous star but she still remains a fascinating enigma.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Captivating, although we all know the sad ending. Biographical but with fictitious parts ... but which parts?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Another book that I probably would not have read without the 1001 Books list, but I’m glad I did. This was my first Oates novel, and it was a chunkster. I really love the writing, and the fictionalized account of Marilyn Monroe’s life was engrossing. I fell into a rabbit hole of google searches trying to see what was real and what was fabricated. It’s really sad all the way through, but still a solid read. ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Though long, I found this book to be very readable and really quite entertaining.But.This is a fictionalized version--a VERY fictionalized version--of Norma Jeane Baker/Marilyn Monroe's life. Things that ARE known, like the fact that she did not live with her grandmother as a child (her grandmother died when Norma was younger), were changed by Oates. Why, exactly, I don't understand and I do not like. No, not everything about her life is known, but why change what IS known, other than to make "reasons" for her behavior. But they're not reasons if they are fake.She also never calls DiMaggio or Miller by name--but we all know who they are meant to be. Why is DiMaggio's Sicilian mother obsessed with properly cooked risotto? Risotto is a Po Valley food--rice does not grow in Sicily! Is this sloppiness, or is Oates trying to "hide" the true identities of the "characters" to avoid being sued by descendants? Why not just write a novel, an original story? Why take a real person's life and change their childhood, put words in their mouth, thoughts in their head, use aliases for others (study execs all get letters), to make a fake biography? It annoys me, and as both a genealogist and historian it pisses me off. Mostly I found this to be a very frustrating read. I feel like I need to read actual MM biographies to clear my head. I find this sooo hard to discuss because am I discussing a life or a story? I CAN'T TELL.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe by Joyce Carol Oates. I can't say that I really enjoyed the book. I am not into reading about actresses and Hollywood but I knew about Marilyn Monroe. Born in 1926 and died 1962. I would have been 8 years old at the time. I can't say that I've ever watched any of her movies but I can say that I am familiar with the icon Marilyn. Her image is an American icon. This book while a work of fiction is the author's interpretation of what it might have been like and what may have drove Marilyn or Norma Jean. She had an awful life but she made something of that life and one could say that she had resiliency but she also was traumatized and in the end Hollywood won and Norma Jean lost. The book uses initials and descriptions of person's job or acclaim such as ex athlete and playwright and President rather than names. I did not like the book. The book was readable. It was a book about a sex symbol and therefore the subject matter was sex and language and also Hollywood culture which included drugs.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It took me awhile to finish this book but it was definitely worth the read. I have never really been a Monroe fan and didn't have any real interest. This was a book club pick which unfortunately I didn't complete for the discussion but after a few chapters, I did get into it and wanted to finish it. The nightstand book that I fell asleep to many a nights. Bottom Line - I feel like I was reading Marilyn's Diary. It felt very authentic. I have to say I have a soft spot in my heart for Marilyn Monroe that wasn't there before and I was really rooting for a different ending to her story. She deserves her status as an Icon, no wonder everyone loves Marilyn all these years later- I guess, I even love her too!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What an amazing book! It illustrates to me what an artist's work is, at its core. Joyce Carol Oates started with the facts of Norma Jean Baker's life and in the crucible of her imagination created a great work of fiction in which she imagined what it would have been like to live her strange life -- in which Marilyn Monroe was but one of many characters. I loved it for so many reasons...primarily for the multi-faceted and fascinating character she created. The icon we know as Marilyn Monroe became a real person on the pages of this book, someone driven, brilliant, insecure, mystical, disciplined, helpless and a victim of her own beauty. It also is a wonderful snapshot of America in the 50's and early 60's, capturing both the frightening politics of the McCarthy era and a time when women had not yet begun to liberate themselves. Was this really only 50 years ago? While Norma Jean is the primary narrator, Oates also writes from the perspectives of other people in her life -- sometimes first person, sometimes third person -- and uses typography to help the reader figure out the shifts in narrator. She also includes fictional journal entries, including poem fragments, from the notebook Norma Jean kept throughout her life. This is a book I'm keeping, not lending, because I know I will want to read it again.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I can't recommend this fictionalized version of the life of Marilyn Monroe more highly. I had put off reading it for a long time since it is so voluminous (more than 700 pages), but almost every word resonates, and it is well-worth the time invested (though that was much less than might be thought, since it is such a compelling read).Oates warns in her forward that this book should not be read as a historic document--she calls it a radically distilled "life" in the form of fiction. She states that in place of numerous lovers, medical crises, abortions, and suicide attempts, she has selected a symbolic few, although the husbands are there, referred to as "the ex-athlete" and "the playwright". (There was also a brief early marriage to "Bucky"). However, I think that the book captures the essence of Marilyn Monroe, who was a mass of contradictions--the "dumb blonde" and the intellectual, the prude and the sex-pot, the little girl and the sophisticate. Overall, Oates depicts Marilyn's life as a search for her father (she frequently called her lovers and husbands "Daddy"). Moreover, the book is a fascinating inside look at the avarice and brutality of Hollywood and its insiders as they exploit "Norma Jean" and create the fiction of Marilyn Monroe.There are some readers who don't care for Oates's writing style. She sometimes tends to run on. I don't find that a problem, and I loved this book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    “In life, the woman was hell and in hell; on film, divine.”-Billy Wilder“Beauty is a question of optics. All sight is illusion.”This is a fictionalized account of Norma Jeane Baker, aka Marilyn Monroe. From a stuttering, neglected, little girl, to a drugged out, burned out starlet. It is not an easy read. This woman is relentlessly abused, exploited, raped and scorned for 700 pages. Nightmarish and hallucinogenic. What makes it captivating and readable, is the author's terrific writing skill and wildly ambitious approach. She has surely done her homework too, capturing many facets of the film industry and her complex relationships, with her many husbands. Do not take this as a true biography, but if your stomach and brain can handle the abuse, give it a try.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    “Blonde” is about the quintessential American blond icon: Marilyn Monroe. It’s a fictionalized biography that is grounded in research but takes off into imagination; inventing love affairs, merging multiple people into one archetypal persona, and looking into the mind of MM. Not just into her mind; into her heart and soul. Somehow, Oates manages, with her dense prose, to put the reader in Norma Jeane’s self, and feel everything she feels. It’s not a pleasant place to be, but it’s un-put-downable. The novel is slow at the beginning but picks up steam rapidly; Oates goes into detail about Norma Jeane’s childhood. It was a horrible childhood (as MM’s childhood was) and the prose takes us deep into just *how* horrible it was. MM’s disastrous teenage marriage, her discovery by a photographer, her early Hollywood days and being forced to provide sex for the studio bosses, and her success at great cost are all detailed. Not a drinker and against drugs, she ended up drinking heavily and taking uppers, downers, and who knows what else to get her through her days on the set and the social appearances that were demanded of her. Through it all, all she really wanted was for someone to love her, the true her, Norma Jeane, not the cardboard cutout Marilyn Monroe. She only got that once, for a very short time, and turned it down when it appeared. At over seven hundred pages, “Blonde” is not a light read, but it’s pretty fast for how dense it is. It haunted my mind for days after finishing it. I’ve read several biographies of Monroe, and none of them really gave me the feel of her life like this novel did.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a wonderful book. It took me just a little bit to really get into it (even though I was hooked right off the bat, it just wasn't super fast-paced initially), but once I did I sped through it, reading the bulk of this large tome in only two days. Oates' writing is fabulous, and her use of fictionalizing the story a bit enabled her to fully get into Marilyn's head and let us see her more fully, in a way that a straight non-fiction work couldn't do. I'm definitely interested in seeing what else Oates can do.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is my favorite JCO book. If a novel could be a masterful impressionistic painting, this is what it would read like. Blonde is lovely and lyrical from first word to last. Unlike biography it paints a portrait of an interior world, one that seems to me to match up with the strange life of the American icon that was Marilyn.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Blonde is the fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe, from birth to her 'suicide'. I've never followed Marilyn Monroe or known anything more than sketchy details about her life. Joyce Carol Oates tries to make some of the details intentionally vague - referring to famous people by just a single initial, and calling her husbands/lovers 'The Ex-Athlete', 'The Playwright' or 'The President'. The story is told through a combination of 3rd person narrative and Marilyn's point of view. A big part of this book is not being certain what is happening vs. what is part of Marilyn's descent into a drug-hazed reality or her own madness. I found it very unsettling. I did find interesting the aspects that dealt with how Hollywood treated female stars at the time - the casting couch, the horrible salaries, etc., but overall, I found the book to be artistically crafted but very disturbing. Unlike other reviewers, I was glad when it ended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oates has a unique talent for creating the most mesmerizing plots. This novel is part poem, part drama, part homage, a giant fresco designed to see one of the most known stars in a completely new light. What I find to be a coup de maître is the fact that Norma Jeane never disappears throughout all of Marilyn's life: a shy, scared girl looking for approval and terrified of failure. Monroe's life suddenly makes so much sense.Far from being knowledgeable about Monroe's biography, I was transported through fact and fiction, never bored and slightly amazed at the sing song allure of the story which constantly pulls the reader back into the plot.A haunting tale.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oohh, this was a great read. Oates's controversial novel is a fictionalization of the life of the Hollywood siren Marilyn Monroe. Some have found it repellent that the author dared to write about such a tragedy without knowing the truth of possible abuses, love affairs, abortions, drug use, etc... But I accept this work as fiction and it seemed more than fair to me in its treatment of Norma Jeane. The writing is daring and thrilling in its unconventionality (e.g. Death comes riding on a bicycle in the opening scene). All I know is, I wasn't a fan of the actress before this novel, and now I may be bordering on obsessed. (can't get enough of her on youtube!) Read this if you're not entirely familiar with MM's story; if you are, you've been fair warned.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Blonde, is a sensitive interpretation of Norma Jean Mortenson’s (Marilyn Monroe) inner-self as it was shaped and influenced by her life experiences. This portrayal, by Joyce Carol Oates, is intended to show Hollywood’s iconic star as she was –a real person affected by dysfunctional life experiences that started at birth and ended with her premature death, at 36. Her outer mystic is peeled away to expose a spiritual life that yearned for what everyone deserves, unconditional love and acceptance. This makes Norma Jean’s life all the more tragic. She was not a dumb blond, but a self-educated and motivated individual who sought for, but never discovered, who she was.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I found this book to be shockingly good. Only as a fictionalized biography, could Oates have gotten under the skin of Norma Jean and the people in her life the way she did. I want to go back and see all of her movies again, read more about her life and after an interval of needed rest from the sadness of this book, read Norman Mailer's biography of Monroe. Thank you Joyce Carol Oates for writing this book.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The story of this book is compelling; the narrative is compulsively readable. However, this is a NOVEL. What parts are true? What parts are made up in Oates's head? Does it matter? It does to me. I don't understand the fictionalizing of a real person's life. I think it's wrong. If a biographer gets something wrong or has a skewed agenda, then it can be argued in a review or another biography can be written. But this this is "fiction"--so where do you go to "fix" Oates's vision of this woman's real life? I got about halfway through this book and gave up on it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Powerful and enthralling fictionalized account of Marilyn Monroe's life and death--very very sad. I'm reading some bios. of her to try to figure out what's true--factually. But this version is true in the way that great art is true. Once again, Oates amazes me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book really showed you how Marilyn must have been in her days. She talks about her childhood years as a foster child. The story talks of her all her marriages and shows how mentally unstable she was. A good read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Certainly a wonderful mix of research and creative thought, but I was tremendously disappointed with the final section of the book -- especially the way Oates chose to handle Monroe's death. My first experience reading Oates.