There are many Marilyns: sex goddess and solitary figure, crafty manipulator and dumb blonde, liberated woman and innocent child.

‘Ferociously smart. A rare combination of guilty pleasure and intellectual insight’ VOGUE

‘Perceptive. Refreshing. Tears away layers of false readings and conspiracy theories’ NEW YORK TIMES

Intricately researched. Churchwell’s Marilyn is a complex, well-rounded creature in the best sense – the human sense’ OBSERVER

There are many Marilyns: sex goddess and innocent child, crafty manipulator and dumb blonde, screen legend and Hollywood victim.

In this incisive and subtle book, Sarah Churchwell looks at how the stories we tell have trivialised a woman we supposedly adore, and at what they reveal about our attitudes towards sex symbols and icons, to women, death, biography and Marilyn herself.

"Inventive and entertaining ... Churchwell seems to have invented an altogether new form of biography" - LITERARY REVIEW

"A splendid metabiography of one of the great icons of the twentieth century" - SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

"Refreshing … [Tears] away layers of false readings and conspiracy theories" - NEW YORK TIMES

"Ferociously smart … A rare combination of guilty pleasure and intellectual insight" - VOGUE

"Untangles the threads of Monroe’s life story, isolating the essential cornerstones of the Monroe myth" - INDEPENDENT