Farrar, Straus and Giroux today released Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters by Marilyn Monroe. PW's review of the embargoed book follows.
Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters
by Marilyn Monroe. Edited by Stanley Buchtal and Bernard Comment.
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $30 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-15835-4
When Marilyn Monroe died in 1962, her personal possessions were bequeathed to Lee Strasberg. When he died 20 years later, his widow, Anna, inherited this uncatalogued collection of dresses, pictures, letters, and other objects. Years later, sorting out Lee’s papers, Anna Strasberg discovered two boxes of poems and other manuscripts written by Monroe. Unsure what to do with these papers, she called on editors Buchtal and Comment to help evaluate the quality of the inventory; this spectacular book is the result of the collaboration. As the editors observe, these materials reveal a cultured and curious Marilyn who had a strong desire to understand others, the outside world, destiny, and, of course, herself. She took notes, swiftly setting down her feelings and thoughts and expressing her wonder. For example, Monroe and Arthur Miller stayed at the Parkside House in London in the summer of 1956 while the film The Princess and the Showgirl, starring Monroe and Laurence Olivier, was being shot. During their stay, Monroe accidentally read Miller’s diary and discovered his disappointment with her. She then wrote a series of poems expressing her own sadness about love and its possibilities on the Parkside House stationery. Included among other items in this beautifully rendered collection are Monroe’s “kitchen notes” (which contain a long list of all the things she had to organize in preparation for giving a birthday dinner to a friend), Lee Strasberg’s funeral eulogy for Marilyn, covers from books in Marilyn’s library, and her favorite photo of herself by Cecil Beaton. This gorgeous and surprising collection offers us another glimpse of a woman who continues to turn our heads and hearts whenever we see her.
