Female Icons: Marilyn Monroe to Susan SontagThis volume represents more than twenty-five years of writing about female icons and biography. Rollyson provides the bits and pieces that resulted not only in his biography of Marilyn Monroe but also in much of the work he has subsequently done on Lillian Hellman, Martha Gellhorn, Rebecca West, Susan Sontag, and on the nature of biography itself. This book includes a selection of Rollyson's New York Sun book reviews dealing with female icons such as Mary Stuart, Mary Wollstonecraft, The Brontės, Marie Curie, Harriet Tubman, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Sylvia Plath. Rollyson's writing about icons has provoked him to question the process by which selves are defined. Discovering the shaping mechanisms of the self is simultaneously a way of understanding how biographies are built. In the end, this book should be of interest not merely to devotees of Monroe, Sontag, and other icons but also to anyone curious about the nature of biography and the biographer. |
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actress Alane American Annie Leibovitz Arthur Miller artist asked audience Audrey Flack become biog biogra Blondes Brontė Burstyn called Camille Paglia career Carl childhood Cline criticism Curie Diana Doctorow dream Edel editor Elizabeth essay fact feel feminist fiction figure film Flack friends Garbus Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Gerry Guiles Hellman Hollywood icon identity intellectual interview kind knew letter Lillian Hellman Lisa literary lives look Maggie Marilyn Monroe Martha Gellhorn Mary metaphors mirror Misfits Mitford Monroe's mother movie myth narrative never Norman Mailer Norton novel novelist Paglia painting person photographs play popular culture published Quentin readers Rebecca West replied Roger Straus role Rollyson Roslyn seems sense Seven Year Itch sexual Steinem story suggests suicide Susan Sontag Sylvia Plath talk television thing tion Trilling Tubman wanted West’s wife Wollstonecraft woman women words writing wrote York Zelda Zelda Fitzgerald