The IMMORTALS

Description

From Publishers Weekly Once again Korda ( Queenie ; The Fortune ) glibly but engagingly dramatizes historical events: this time, the love affairs between Marilyn Monroe and Jack and Bobby Kennedy. (Anxious to establish his assiduous research, he expresses his indebtedness to 17 books about the Kennedys, Monroe, J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa and others.) A fictional public relations expert, David Lehman, narrates much of the tale. Fast-moving, with lively if superficial and overly familiar characters, the plot portentously rehashes Monroe's various marriages and innumerable affairs, career swings and problems with drugs and alcohol. Korda also chronicles the Kennedy brothers' rise to power, their father's heavy hand in shaping their careers and their friendship with Frank Sinatra, meanwhile suggesting the machinations of the FBI, the mob and the Teamsters. (Jackie Kennedy is absent for the most part.) Except for the dialogue, which generally rings true, and the invented sex scenes, Korda adds nothing new or surprising; the book will further relegate Marilyn and Jack to pop-culture history. Though it's good commercial "faction," however, even hardy readers will find the novel about 100 pages too long. 150,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; first serial rights to Cosmopolitan; movie rights to Dino De Laurentiis; ok Literary Guild main selection. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more From Kirkus Reviews Sweeping love story of Marilyn Monroe's long-standing affairs with Senator, then President, Kennedy and brother Bobby. That Marilyn and JFK might someday be worthy of the high treatment given by Wild Bill Shakespeare to Antony and Cleopatra remains a teaser for playwrights and novelists. But in his latest (already slated for filming as well as heavy marketing), Korda- -Queenie, Curtain, etc.--sets his sights much lower than great tragedy and gives us a work of strong intelligence and ravishing vulgarity. Almost no event in it is unfamiliar, though its great garden of sex-play springs largely from imagination. Many readers will be dismayed by Korda's pillow talk among the gods, sex chat given a saltiness that may fit the actual MM & JFK but that looks cheap on paper. The story: MM, married to DiMaggio, meets Senator Kennedy at a Beverly Hills party; he gives her his card; they rendezvous. Marilyn is bored by her husbands and treats adultery like a midnight plum duff. She loves Jack, Jack loves MM. He has an arrangement with Jackie that his satyriasis need not be contained but must remain discreet; MM's being the most famous woman in the world, however, crimps JFK's ties with jealous Jackie, who finds out about the ongoing affair. Meanwhile, RFK attacks the Teamsters hierarchy, Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa, and Jimmy in turn bugs Peter Lawford's love-tryst bungalow, various hotel rooms, and MM's phone and bedroom, all of which are already bugged by J.Edgar Hoover's FBI team. Once JFK is president, he withdraws from MM. RFK becomes her lover, gets her with child. MM's meds take their toll, she becomes ever more erratic, puts unbearable strain on the Brothers K when she announces a tell-all press conference.... About midway, when the freshness of the lovers wanes and a certain sourness overtakes them, the story darkens and the mechanics of the many- leveled plot deflates the reader's gusto, though not Korda's. Many brilliant scenes, but not as artful or haunting as Sam Toperoff's 1991 MM novel, Queen of Desire. (Literary Guild Dual Selection for November) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Read more

Features:

Product Details:

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (September 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 4
• ISBN-13: 64
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds

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