Blonde: A Novel

The third-person narrator explains the role of the press and how it is their job to spread Hollywood’s news.

The FBI has a file on Norma Jeane—a list of many men she is suspected of having had sexual relations with.

An ex-athlete who is never named decides that he wants to date Marilyn Monroe. He is an ex-baseball player whose wife divorced him because of cruelty. He is looking for a non-clingy woman who does not try to be a man. His friend tells the ex-athlete that Marilyn is a “tramp” and a “cow” who does not wear underwear and lives with two gay men.

The Gemini seek a new home and proper environment for their baby. Norma Jeane considers the men to be her princes. She thinks about Shinn and how she would have an amazing house of her own if she had married him. Norma Jeane tells Cass about the offer she received to meet the Ex-Athlete, and Cass thinks she should say yes because he is rich, and she could just play hard to get. She feels like the Ex-Athlete was insulting, like she could be bought by him. 

In the Cypresses, Cass believes he sees a sudden movement behind a drape. The Gemini talks about animals, and Norma Jeane gets offended that she is always referred to as “she” by the Gemini, always the “distant third point of the eternal triangle which Cass had described as death” (388). Suddenly, the realtor cries that she sees a rattlesnake, and Cass says that he has brought it there. He has been seeing them in various places. When Norma Jeane asks Eddy G if he knew about these snakes, Eddy G replies that he does not know if they are Cass’s or his own.

Norma Jeane calls Z, who connects her with his secretary from the Aviary, Yvette. Yvette tells her that she will take care of the arrangements and will go with her the next morning.

Norma Jeane, referred to as The Blonde Actress in this chapter, is nervous about her date. The Ex-Athlete falls in love with Norma Jeane quickly. Norma Jeane thinks the Ex-Athlete is more of a celebrity than she is and that this could protect her from her own celebrity.

Norma Jeane goes to the store, Bullock’s, to purchase gifts for Whitey, her makeup man, and for Yvette. In the store, she hears “Für Elise” playing, which she had previously heard from Clive Pearce. She is currently in Z’s good graces because of all the money she is making, and the Ex-Athlete wants to marry her. She recognizes the piano man playing the music as Pearce, and she goes to speak with him. He does not remember Norma Jeane, but he tells her that he purchased her mother’s old piano, and he sells it to her.

Norma Jeane is driven by the man she calls the Frog Chauffeur to the abortionist's office. She tries to tell them that she has changed her mind. She continues to try to explain that it is all a mistake, but the narrator states that she is a million-dollar investment that will not be risked. She asks them not to photograph her. She thinks the hands feel like Pearce poking into her butt crack. The doctor tells her that they do not want to have to restrain her as she keeps saying there has been a mistake. She breaks free and runs away. She then goes into Glady’s bedroom and tries to take a baby out of a drawer as the abortionist speculum enters her and scoops out her baby, which she believes screamed once.

The Studio gives Norma Jeane a hotel suite after a party celebrating Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and she and the Ex-Athlete have sex. The Ex-Athlete knows that Norma Jeane is being exploited by the Studio and wants to take her away. Before the premiere of the movie, she gets a notice that someone special will be waiting for her in her hotel room, and she believes that it is her father. Meanwhile, she worries that the Ex-Athlete did not come to the premiere because he does not like being outshined by her. He does not like it when she is Marilyn, and he only wants her to dress provocatively in his presence. One day before the premiere, she receives a letter from an anonymous man telling her that he is her father and that her mother kicked him out of her life. He plans to contact her again soon. She has received more medication from the doctor since her abortion; she was hysterical after the procedure. Norma Jeane goes to her hotel hoping to see her father, but the Ex-Athlete is there. They decide to get married.

Norma Jeane spends much time reading and studying mime, yoga, and piano. The Ex-Athlete gets angry with her for the way she is portrayed by Hollywood. He flushes photos of her down the toilet, and he tells her he does not want her to do the next movie. She gets quite ill and needs an appendectomy. Norma Jeane does not feel well because she has given up Dr. Bob’s drugs after she passed out and was taken away by an ambulance. She plans to give up movies to make her husband happy, and she wants to have many babies. A photographer calls the Ex-Athlete about some photo negatives he believes the man will want of his wife. He buys the negatives of her nudes, but he never tells Norma Jeane about them. 

The couple goes to Japan in honor of the Ex-Athlete, but people are much more intrigued by Norma Jeane than the Ex-Athlete. At a party, an Army colonel asks her to go perform for the troops in Korea. She says she could mime or perform a soliloquy from Shakespeare, but after seeing the response from the colonel, she tells him that she was just joking. Her husband stays in Japan while she goes to Korea, even though it is their honeymoon. He decides she must make it up to him.

Norma Jeane wears a white crepe halter dress and stands on subway grate that lifts the skirt of her dress up, showing her white underpants. Her husband is there, along with many unknown men. Later her husband hits her and calls her a whore.

Norma Jeane gets a letter from her unknown father. He tells her that her movie and publicity are vulgar, but he says that she has her own life to live. He is sad that her “marriage to this stellar athlete ended in divorce” (475). He hopes to meet her soon.

A giant poster of Monroe over the subway grate is put up, and an interlude in the text reads: “look at you! Cow. Udders and cunt in everybody’s face” (478). Nobody knows what truly happened at the end of the marriage, but there are reports of Norma Jeane in the hospital, beaten. Norma Jeane goes to see her movie.

Marilyn says in an interlude that she did not wish to die. She is at Venice Beach, and her dress is ripped with her breasts exposed. Her body is oily from the drugs. The parts of herself where the Ex-Athlete squeezed her, including her throat, are numb. Gladys has started shock therapy because Norma Jeane refuses to offer permission for a lobotomy; she sees her mother as being an intelligent, complex poet. Norma Jeane plans to leave Hollywood and vanish. She leaves the car she borrowed and runs. Her dress is torn by someone the narrator calls the bearded derelict. She believes she sees something out in the water, but she also knows it is not real. She remembers the Ex-Athlete’s hands around her neck and wonders why he let her go. She would have drowned in the water, but she is saved by some surfers.

The Jewish playwright is never named, and Norma Jeane asks him to never write about her. She leaves Hollywood. She plays the part of Magda for the Playwright. She also works with the Playwright's assistant, Mr. Pearlman. The Playwright is described as a man of character. Norma Jeane had some kind of undescribed sexual interlude with Mr. Pearlman, and she reassures the Playwright that she and Pearlman were not really lovers. The Playwright tells her that he wants to save her from herself. He is still married, but he is not happy in his marriage. He sees Norma Jeane as vulnerable, and he learns that Marilyn is just a role she plays.

The Dark Prince kisses her, but he does not love her. These two first met many years ago, and she believes he has a message for her. He gets in the tub and vomits in the water, and while she tries to help him, he calls her a cunt. He gets into her bed, and while he wants her to call him Carlo, she does not think they are lovers. This man is a greatly respected film actor. In an interlude, she says that after her death, Brando was the only one of the jackals who gave no interviews about her. They may have both saved each other’s lives that night.

The Playwright sees Norma Jeane ice skate with Magda’s costar. He knows that The Studio has given into Norma Jeane’s demands and that she will not be going back to Hollywood. The playwright decides to marry her.

The playwright writes, a decade later, about the intersection of pathology and capitalist-consumer culture.

Norma Jeane tells the Playwright that something is wrong. He asks her if she is taking many pills, which she denies. She again asks him if he will write about her because that is what some people do, but he tells her that he will not. She is tired of being ashamed of herself. Whenever she summons Doc Fell to her room, he gives her medication. 

When she arrived in California, she refused to exit the plane, and people had to coax her off. She believes that people are mocking her. She knows that her phones are tapped and frequently keeps the blinds closed, and she has to be careful with her underwear because it can be sold on the black market. She routinely calls for Dr. Fell, who is in the employ of the Studio.

Norma Jeane is in England with her British costar, O. She still feels like Norma Jeane all trussed up. She tells the Playwright that her costar hates her, but he says that she has just found a man who does not desire her. One day the Playwright is frantic to wake her up, and she awkwardly moves when she finally wakes. For a moment, the Playwright wonders why he married her, but he knows he has to help her because he loves her. She wants to die, but she believes that if she gets pregnant, she will love her husband again. One day on set, she drinks while taking medications and falls, ultimately needing her stomach pumped.

Norma Jeane and the Playwright go to the Maine Coast. He feels intense love and responsibility for her. She becomes pregnant. She takes good care of herself and has retired from her career so that she can be a wife and a mother. The Playwright has heard rumors of her sexual past and possible abortions, but he wants to protect her even from her past. The Playwright is not as happy about the pregnancy as she is, but he keeps this from her. She starts reading Christian Science publications again. She also keeps lists of words she does not know, and she does this, she says, because it is like taking her finals since she never graduated from high school. 

Norma Jeane insists she is done with film acting, but her husband wonders how long she can stay away from acting in general. He is writing a screenplay specifically for her. Norma Jeane is insecure around his friends, thinking that intelligent people will want nothing to do with her. The text of a narrative poem is printed in which a Beggar Maid is transformed into a Fair Princess. The Fair Princess does not want this, and she is laughed at and told things will get worse. She then meets a Prince who courts her, but she tries to tell him that she is a Beggar Maid, not a Fair Princess. 

Norma Jeane believes she hears meowing under the floorboards, but her husband does not hear it. She has been feeding stray cats outside recently. The Playwright goes downstairs to check, but he does not see anything. He leaves the room, and then hears her scream. She had gone downstairs to listen for the noise and tripped. She was 15 weeks pregnant when she miscarried.

Norma Jeane almost dies while miscarrying. She has to be under observation in the hospital because, in a delirium, she said she wanted to kill herself.