Blonde cover art

Blonde

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Blonde

By: Joyce Carol Oates
Narrated by: Jayne Atkinson
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

 She was an all-American girl who became a legend of unparalleled stature. She inspired the adoration of millions, and her life has beguiled generations of fans and fellow artists. The story of Norma Jeane Baker, better known by her studio name, Marilyn Monroe, has been dissected for more than three decades, but never has it been captured in a narrative as breathtaking and transforming as Blonde.

In her most ambitious work to date, Joyce Carol Oates, one of America's most distinguished writers, reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker, the child, the woman, the fated celebrity, and tells the story in Norma Jeane's own voice: startling, rich, and shattering.

Drawing on biographical and historical sources, Joyce Carol Oates evokes the distinct consciousness of the woman and the unsparing reflection of the myth, writing as she has never written before, ecstatic, completely absorbed, inhabited as if by the spirit of her extraordinary subject. Rich with psychological insight and disturbing irony, this mesmerizing narrative illumines Norma Jeane's lonely childhood, wrenching adolescence, and the creation of Marilyn Monroe.

With fresh insights into the heart of a celebrity culture hypnotized by its own myths, Blonde is a sweeping novel about the elusive magic of a woman, the lasting legacy of a star, and the heartbreak behind the creation of the most evocative icon of the 20th century.

©2001 Joyce Carol Oates (P)2001 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Biographical Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Biography Fiction Heartfelt Mythology Celebrity

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Lovely, Dark, Deep cover art
Beautiful Days cover art
The (Other) You cover art
A Widow's Story cover art
The Falls cover art
The Last Housewife cover art
Eyes of Osiris, A Kayara Ingham Novel cover art
Beyond the High Blue Air cover art
The Years cover art
Everything the Darkness Eats cover art
The Marriage Retreat cover art
Everything All at Once cover art
Goddess cover art
Marilyn Monroe cover art

Critic reviews

"Atkinson narrates Oates's fictional biography of Marilyn Monroe in an intense, slightly husky voice that immediately grabs and holds the listener's attention." ( Publishers Weekly)
All stars
Most relevant  
Extremely well told, the husky voice of the narrator really added character and back bone to the book and opened my eyes. Wasn't sure at first about the book in the first 30 minutes but glad i stuck with it.

Liked it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A truly affecting and intelligent story based around Norma Jeane / Marilyn, sensitively told. At times it made me recoil in it’s brutality though it’s never sensational. Moreover, it’s a poetic, empathetic and thoughtful study of a woman who seems to have such little self-esteem and who falls into relationship after relationship with abusive and coercive men.
An unsettling, insightful magnetic listen.

Absolutely riveting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great listen. Joyce Carol Oates never fails to please I was hooked from first page!

Sensational novel

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have been both touched, traumatised and overwhelmed by this book which overturned my v hazy knowledge and, I now see, lazy assumptions of this iconic woman. This book is a masterclass in voice and narrative and it will linger with me forever. A person too beautiful for this world, who deserves a public apology and a book so moving and tenderly felt, a complete masterpiece. Jayne Atkinson is a terrific narrator and it’s a great production. Bravo!

Searingly beautiful and sad swan song to a legend

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Given the time slips, changes in narrator, multitude of characters and the very different personas of Norma Jean and Marilyn- this audiobook should have been hard to follow but Jayne Atkinson's talented performance makes this complex novel an audio 'page turner' of which I enjoyed every minute.

Jayne Atkinson's performance is incredible!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The more you know about Marilyn the more fascinating she becomes. I knew a lot of the information in this novel but Joyce Carol Oates has created an absorbing, disturbing and compelling piece of work. It is beautifully narrated too.

Totally absorbing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Two things to highlight about this book:
ABRIDGED
FICTION
This book is so good, it was a crime to chop it.
The writing is practically perfect, so is the narration.
I have never read Joyce Carol Oates but now I have another one lined up from her, which is unfortunately not on Audible. Not a problem, I will need to read Blonde as well anyway, because now that I have been so inattentive and bought the ABRIDGED version and heard the beautiful narration, I can't make myself to return it but I want the whole story.
The book wants to capture the essence of Marilyn the girl and the woman, but it is important to realise that although a lot of the characters really existed and knew her, while some are inspired by people she knew, this is FICTION.
To me, the performer's breathless, husky voice to represent Marilyn is perfection. She doesn’t overdo her characters, doesn't do "voices" and doesn’t embellish. She is just perfect.

Beautiful writing. Perfect Narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Sadly this is an abridged version which is not noted in the description.
The narrator and content are excellent, but I returned it as I wish to read the full text.
Audible should make it clear upon purchase if a text is abridged.

Abridged version

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Spellbound throughout. Good interview with author at the end. Excellent story telling with good narrator.

Loved it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Enjoyed this very much (though there was some peculiar phrasing by the narrator at times) but was disappointed to find it was an abridged version, given that this isn't mentioned anywhere that I can see on the Audible app (a scene was mentioned in the author interview at the end which hadn't been in the audio book, and that got me googling).

Abridged

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews