Berniece Baker Miracle

The writing here is very strange, jumping between perspectives and what I can only assume are suppositions because I’m not sure how you would know some of these details about how other folks felt or behaved unless you had a camera on them 24/7. It feels…padded maybe? I appreciate the insight into Marilyn but the rest can feel meandering and perhaps embellished.

I recommend this book to anyone vaguely interested in Marilyn Monroe, not merely the die-hard fan. I do not fall into that category, but am aware of her enduring presence as an icon. This book lived up to its intriguing promise of providing ANOTHER viewpoint about Marilyn – other than the myriad biographies which have been about Marilyn by ‘outsiders’ and those enriching themselves on the proceeds.
This is very much the biography of Norma Jean Baker as she came to be known by her show more sister.

The picture of ‘private Marilyn’ depicted here does an enormous amount to restore Marilyn’s humanity, her connection with her family and peers, the person behind the impenetrable Goddess Icon that she has become in the decades since her death. This is the uncommodified, unexploited Marilyn, a person who loved and was loved. It’s a great corrective to the hagiographic or shallow tendencies of most Marilyn-abilia and I thoroughly recommend it. show less