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|title=Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox

|author=Lois Banner

|borrow=Yes

|isbn=9781408814109

|pages=515

|publisher=Bloomsbury

|date=August 2012

|summary=A very full life of Marilyn Monroe, sympathetic and critical in turns. Its only drawback is the author's persistent and unashamed drawing attention to her pioneering research and interviews connected with the subject.

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With the possible exception of Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe is probably the most written-about deceased woman in twentieth-century history. The thirty-six years of her life and the manner of her death will no doubt continue to provide an opportunity for as many writers as they have since her sudden passing. After a decade of research Lois Banner, a Professor of History and Gender Studies at university in California, has added another weighty tome to the relevant shelves. As a self-styled pioneer of second-wave feminism and the new women’s history, she has some interesting insights to offer into her subject’s life as a gender role model.

This is a very readable account of a tragic figure, admirably sympathetic while not seeking to conceal her faults. The three sections of plates, in colour (including two of the notorious nude shots) and black and white plates are well chosen. My only real criticism is the author’s preoccupation at times with herself, her insistence on showing us how thoroughly she has done her research, and how she is the only person – or almost the only one – to examine a certain item of evidence, or interview a certain person. Frankly one suspects she could have done with a rather more forceful editor to call her to heel. Yet for all that, this is a very worthwhile book on a fascinating and complex twentieth-century icon.

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[[Category:Entertainment]]