First published 2010
This collection presents Monroe's personal writings discovered after her death in 1962. The actress filled notebooks with observations about her craft and relationships. She typed letters on hotel stationery during film shoots. She scribbled poems on scraps of paper between takes. The texts span her career from early Hollywood struggles to her final troubled years. Monroe analyzes her performances with surprising honesty. She writes about lovers and directors with both tenderness and sharp wit. Her notes reveal someone working hard to improve as an actor while battling public misconceptions about her intelligence. The writings capture both her playful humor and her growing despair. Intimate photographs accompany the texts, showing Monroe away from cameras and crowds. Her words expose the gap between her public image and private reality.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, autobiography, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Hollywood
Period: 1962
239 pages · Hardcover · Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Content warnings: mental-illness