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Marilyn: Portrait of a Shooting Star
by Marie-Magdeleine Lessana

Since her death in 1962, Marilyn Monroe has generated a plethora of narratives and an industry of images that portray her as everything from the embodiment of a dream to a self-destructive heroine.

Rejecting the familiar tropes of a difficult upbringing, volatile depression, professional insecurity, and tempestuous affairs and marriages, Marilyn: Portrait of a Shooting Star reveals what really lies behind the brilliance and the mysteries of one of the most iconic women of the twentieth century. Shedding light on her desire to be treated as an intellectual equal, this work highlights her determination not to be cast as a victim.

In describing her progress through the worlds of cinema, photography, and theater, Marie-Magdeleine Lessana has drawn out the unseen threads of Marilyn’s life and enduring significance, honing in on something crucial and all too often forgotten: her own agency and her grasp of the truth.

More about the Author of this Book

Marie-Magdeleine Lessana is a psychoanalyst and novelist in Paris. Her books include Malaise dans la procréation (1993), Entre mère et fille: un ravage (2000), Georges Bataille (2001), Chambre d’accusation (2002), Ne quittez pas (2006), Mon frère (2009), Un théâtre de l’émo-tion au Mali (2014), and En suivant la mer (2016). In her work, she combines the practice of the psychoanalyst with the practice of the artist.

Product Details

Translator: Mimi C. Newton
Pub Date: 11/1/19
Paperback: 200 pp
ISBN: 978-1-946328-23-6

Price: $28.00