No star in any genre has affected the world as deeply or has lasted as long without fading as Marilyn Monroe. This thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of essays examines the undiminished incandescence of Marilyn Monroe -- the impact she has had on our culture, the evolution of her legend since her death, and what she tells us now about our lives and times -- and includes previously unpublished work from some of America's best writers, such as: Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Elliot Dark, Albert Mobilo, Marge Piercy, Lore Segal, Lisa Shea, and many more.
From her troubled family beginnings to the infamous $13 million auction held at Christie's in New York City, All the Available Light paints an unforgettable portrait of Marilyn as you've never seen her before.
This extremely rare cover photo was taken c. 1954, on the set of The Seven Year Itch.
Journalist and editor McDonough (The Barbie Chronicles) takes on an ambitious project: collecting thoughts about a woman whose every nuance has been so exhaustively discussed that nothing new, it seems, could possibly be said. Happily, McDonough pulls it off, delivering new insight into a star who absorbed all the available light and made it her own. With some new material and a wealth of previously published essays, the collection glitters with the inclusion of luminaries like Molly Haskell, Marge Piercy and Joyce Carol Oates. The pieces range widely in subject while keeping Marilyn at the center: Laurence Olivier writes of being charmed, somewhat against his will, by the bouncy star, while other essayists describe how the mere image of Marilyn changed the way they saw themselves or the world. Especially nice is McDonough's juxtaposition of pieces from different times, such as Clare Boothe Luce's 1964 article following Gloria Steinem's 1986 essay, with both taking a similar position on Love Goddess as victim, but from two very different angles. Often, the essayists question their own fascination and that of their readers. Steinem writes that Marilyn's untimely death may have something to do with it: When the past dies, there is mourning, but when the future dies, our imaginations are compelled to carry it on. A dissection of celebrity in a starstruck age, this collection is at once intelligent and fresh, proving once again why the Love Goddess will continue to live on. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Forty years after her death, one would think that enough had been written about Marilyn Monroe to satisfy even the most avid fan. Yet here is another book that looks at the legacy of this icon. McDonough, author of a forthcoming novel (The Four Temperaments) and, ironically, a tribute to the Barbie doll, has gathered together 17 essays by authors past and present who muse on Marilyn as cultural icon, sex goddess, victim, and actress. Joyce Carol Oates ("Centerfold") and Gloria Steinem ("The Woman Who Will Not Die") share these pages with Sir Laurence Olivier ("The Prince and the Showgirl") and Clare Booth Luce ("The Love Goddess Who Never Found Love"). Some of these pieces were previously published, some were excerpted from longer works, and some were written for this collection. At times, it is difficult to tell which have been previously published and where; McDonough would have done well to list this information along with the piece itself instead of in the introductions to each section. Like the essays, this book ranges greatly in tone and style. Recommended for libraries with extensive pop culture sections. Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Free Libs., Salinas, CA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
When I was young, I didn't think about becoming a writer. In fact, I was determined to become a ballerina, because I studied ballet for many years, and by the time I was in high school, I was taking seven ballet classes a week. But I was always a big reader. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and I used to frequent all the different libraries in my neighborhood on a regular basis. I would look for books by authors I loved. I read my favorite books--ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, A LITTLE PRINCESS, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN--over and over again. I probably read each of those books twenty times in all. I read lots of other things too: I loved comic books and magazines, like Mad and Seventeen. But when you are reader, you just need to read. Sometimes you read books that change your life, like OF MICE AND MEN, which I read--and adored-- when I was in sixth grade. Other times, you read the latest adventures of Betty and Veronica. You'll read a three-day old newspaper days or the back of the cereal box if that's all that there is available, because readers just need to read. So I kept reading, and I kept dancing too, though by the time I was a senior in high school, it was pretty clear to me that I was neither talented nor driven enough to become a professional ballet dancer and I stopped taking lessons and went off to college instead.
As a student at Vassar College, I never once took a writing course. I was not accepted into the poetry workshop I applied to, so I avoided all other writing classes, and instead focused on literature, language and art history, which was my declared major. I was so taken with the field that I decided to pursue my studies on a graduate level. I enrolled in a PhD program at Columbia University where I have to confess that I was miserable. I didn't like the teachers, the students or the classes. I found graduate school the antithesis of undergraduate education; while the latter encouraged experimentation, growth, expansion, the former seemed to demand a kind of narrowing of focus and a rigidity that was simply at odds with my soul. It was like business school without the reward of a well-paying job at the end. Everyone carried a briefcase. I too bought a briefcase, but since I mostly used it to tote my lunch and the NYT crossword puzzle, it didn't do much for my success as a grad student. But I have to thank the program at Columbia for being so very inhospitable, because it helped nudge me out of academia, where I so patently did not belong, and into a different kind of life. I was allowed to take classes in other departments, and by now I was recovered from my earlier rejection so I decided to take a fiction writing class--also, the class was open to anyone; I didn't have to submit work to be accepted. This class was my aha! moment. The light bulb went off for me when I took that class. Suddenly, I understood what I wanted to do with my life. Now I just had to find a way to make a living while I did it.
I finished out the year at Columbia, got a job in which I had no interest whatsoever, and began to look for any kind of freelance writing that I could find. In the beginning, I wrote for very little money or even for free: I wrote for neighborhood newspapers, the alumni magazine of my college. I wrote brochures, book reviews, newsletters--anything and everything that anyone would ask me to write. I did this for a long time and eventually, it worked. I was able to be a little choosier about what I wrote, and for whom I wrote it. And I was able to use my clips to persuade editors to actually assign me articles and stories, instead of my having to write them and hope I could get then published.
But all the while I was writing articles and essays, I was also writing the kind of fiction--short stories, a novel--that had interested me when I was still a student at Columbia. And eventually I began to publish this work too. I've written two novels for adults, THE FOUR TEMPERAMENTS and IN DAHLIA'S WAKE--and my third novel, BREAKING THE BANK, will be out in September. I presently live in Brooklyn, NY with my husband and our two children and two small, yappy dogs. I have been setting my recent novels in my own backyard so to speak; Brooklyn has been fertile ground in all sorts of ways.
This review is from: All the Available Light: A Marilyn Monroe Reader (Paperback)
Although there are a few interesting pieces contained within, the majority is a collection of ultra-feminist psychobabble. Since I assume that these feminist writers were paid for their efforts, they too profited from the one they claim to be objectified and victimized by the male-dominated, Hollywood machine. How much better is that? With their theorizing and analyzing, they all seek to reveal the 'real' woman beneath the mask of Marilyn. Most probably they are all off-the-mark. For a better understanding of Marilyn, you would be much better off watching and enjoying her films, and reading her interviews. The painful truth is, we will never fully know the woman behind the curtain. She is gone and not able to defend herself against this onslaught of ridiculous speculation.
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This review is from: All the Available Light: A Marilyn Monroe Reader (Paperback)
This book was given to me as a gift. As a fan of MM, I used to buy a lot of books on her, which were all pretty redundant. This was a great diversion. It is a collection of writings from other publications and some strictly for the book itself and also the author, Yona Zeldis McDonough's, insights and thoughts on MM.
It is interesting to read what other people think, and some of these writers are quite well known -- Joyce Carol Oates, Gloria Steinhem, Marge Piercy,. These essays show Marilyn in a positive and worst possible light. -- Every little available, hence the title, "All the Available Light". I think this book needs to be read with an extreme open mind by the fans. As a woman who truly loves and is a fan of Monroe, I got the feeling that woman writers here are not fans. They stepped up on their soapbox and tore Marilyn into pieces because of her overt sexuality and the fact that she appeared to be the dumb blonde. They seemed almost intimidated and resorted to stupid remarks about her intelligence. No one truly knew Marilyn, she was and still is an enigma. We can only form opinions, which is what this little blurb of writing really is. Every opinion you can think of is here. There are some facts thrown in for good measure, and the author ends it with a "Chronology" From this, we find out that the author thinks MM was murdered.
Even though Marilyn didn't particularly like Sir Lawrence Olivier, I thought his chapter was one of the best ones. He was her leading man in "The Prince and the Showgirl". After speaking rather bluntly about his sometimes frustrating experience working with her, he realizes in retrospect that in the finished product, she was brilliant and quite beautiful. Which is my own opinion as well. So, I'm biased, I'll admit that.
A lot of this book was very boring and read like text book material with the contributors making up their own words like Monroeivitiy and Monroean. Please... I don't highly recommend this book, but it is an interesting peek into other people's minds and how Marilyn affected them in both their personal and professional lives.
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This review is from: All the Available Light: A Marilyn Monroe Reader (Paperback)
Yet another sad tale of the twisted life of poor old Norma Jeane. The book left you hanging on a sad note. It had several small essays (most of which were typical and boring, and of common knowledge to any wouldbe MM fan), some of which had depressing titles like "The Love Goddess Who Found No Love" and the like. Get it if you want to twist the knife further into little Marilyn's poor ghostly soul...
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