"Paradox, It Seems, Makes for a Very Long Afterlife"

"Nobody is one thing all the time. Yet Marilyn is steeped in paradoxes so profound that, even under the microscope, they stir and shift without ever settling into a singular picture. Such is the premise of Lois Banner’s new biography, 'Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox,' which behaves a little like its subject. Weaving together exclusive interviews, material from previous books and, most significantly, the contents of Monroe’s two long-lost personal filing cabinets (made available to the public only last year, when Banner published a selection from them in 'MM—Personal'), Banner presents a rich and often imaginative narrative of Marilyn’s life. By the end, Monroe feels at once like an earthly being—an almost-friend—and an enigma, still slightly out of focus and just beyond reach. That seems right."

Zoë Slutzky in The New York Times reviews Lois Banner's Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox.

Banner herself writes an appreciation in the Los Angeles Times.

And D. R. Haney in Salon describes Marilyn Monroe as the original California Girl and the ultimate photo model.