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‘Watergate-ing’ Norman Mailer’s Marilyn: Life Writing in Cultural Context

ABSTRACT In 1973, Norman Mailer published a work of creative nonfiction about the life of the actor Marilyn Monroe, entitled Marilyn: A Biography. Released amid a wave of American nostalgia for the 1950s and during the Watergate investigation, the book was upheld as evidence of a ‘witch-hunt’ Watergate culture. In this article, I will analyse the initial reception of Marilyn and its affective history. Situating Marilyn at the intersections of biography, New Journalism, and Watergate discourses demonstrates the important role historical context can play in analysis of celebrity biography. Considering Marilyn in its political, cultural, and literary context illuminates the ways in which the project’s destabilisation of truth aligned with New Journalist pursuits while clashing with Watergate era longings for stability, a collision which excited the ire of many of its initial critics and an early reception that continues to shape responses to the work to this day.