Finding the Real Marilyn in When We Were Brilliant by Lynn Cullen

My guest today is Lynn Cullen, author of When We Were Brilliant, listed in the Photography and Film categories on Art In Fiction.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/86MVn-3LjhY

• Eve Arnold, the only woman Marilyn Monroe ever let photograph her: who she was, why Lynn had never heard of her either, and the shock of discovering that among all of Marilyn's photographers, there were no other women.
• Using Eve's own coffee table book on Marilyn as the novel's framework: six photo shoots over ten years, with scenes built around individual photographs, including the famous mirror shot.
• The ghost of Marilyn: standing on the actual Seven Year Itch subway grate in New York on a windless night when Lynn's coat suddenly swirled up around her, and how that moment made her feel responsible for getting Marilyn right.
• Why Marilyn sought Eve out, never the reverse: Lynn's hypothesis that Marilyn trusted Eve and wanted Norma Jean to get some credit, showing up for Eve's camera looking nothing like the bombshell the world knew.
• Reclaiming Marilyn from the victim narrative: a self-made, intelligent woman with real agency whom the studios fought because she had power, and why the "Hollywood made you and broke you" line from Candle in the Wind is exactly what Eve set out to correct.
• The verdict of Eve's grandson Michael Arnold: "You so captured my grandmother," and how Lynn ended up at the National Portrait Gallery's Marilyn centenary exhibition with him.
• The accidental second person: how a "mistake" at page 60, with Eve addressing Marilyn as "you," revealed the book as Eve's love letter and apology, despite Lynn resisting it at first.
• Photography as relationship: what Lynn learned about portrait photography, what a subject gives each photographer, and why Eve never had a subject like Marilyn again.
• The perennial choice women face: Eve's struggle as a working mother traveling the world as a top photographer.
• Setting the record straight on Marilyn's death at 36: an accidental overdose by a woman who had gone furniture shopping that day and had plans for plays and movies.
• Reading from When We Were Brilliant: the chaotic beach scene where Eve first meets Marilyn, a Botticelli Venus in a white bikini and army boots descending a cliff into a feeding frenzy of gawkers.
• What Lynn learned: to let the novel speak, even when the story demands a choice you resisted, and that eight books in, you still need beginner's mind.

Read more about Lynn Cullen on her website: https://lynncullen.com/

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Want to learn more about Carol Cram, the host of The Art In Fiction Podcast? She's the author of several award-winning novels, including The Towers of Tuscany, A Woman of Note, The Muse of Fire, and The Choir. Check out her website...