Feeling her Oates
Eye acquires Marilyn novel for miniseries
Though details of the deal were not disclosed, it is believed the Eye made an outright high-six figure purchase with a rich backend when the series airs. No writer has yet been attached to adapt the novel.
"Blonde" is a combination of fact and fiction, taking the reader through young Norma Jean Mortensen's early childhood, through her stardom as Marilyn to the failed marriages and trysts.
Undisputed, but little-known, facts also inform the work, such as Marilyn's lifelong search for her unknown father and her desperate battles with an increasingly mentally ill mother.
"Blonde" is being billed as a serious attempt to deal with Marilyn's emotional life, rather than a retread of various well-known scandals. Some of the scenes will include her longtime stay in an orphanage, a depiction of her tortured attachment to agent I.E. Shinn (whose family blamed his early death on Marilyn,) as well as her growing alienation from her public image.
In the introduction to the book, Oates describes her literary approach as "radically distilled 'life' in the form of fiction," adding that it "is not intended as a historical document."
On the lit side, the projected April 2000 hardcover rollout of "Blonde" is unusual since it is the first time in years Oates has abandoned her usual publisher, Dutton.
The nearly 800-page manuscript will be published by Echo Press, an imprint of HarperCollins spearheaded by editor Daniel Halpern.
Robert Greenwald will produce the miniseries. Deal was brokered by Ron Bernstein of the Gersh Agency and John Hawkins of Gotham lit agency John Hawkins and Associates.
An icon in American fiction, Oates has often written on themes of sexual violence and the inner nature of the tragic figures who perpetrate it.
Oates' work includes such varied titles the novel "My Heart Laid Bare," about a con artist; "Broke Heart Blues," a look at modern celebrity through the eyes of an eleven-year-old outlaw; and "Zombie," a portrait of a sex offender released back into society.
