Marilyn: The Story of a Woman

Hyatt has produced an eerily sensitive and engaging portrait in comics of Monroe, conveying the movie star's efforts to retain her sense of identity, her dedication to acting, her disappointments (and the men who contributed to them) and her struggles to control her now legendary career. Hyatt's portrait is one of an insecure, ordinary girl shaped early on by her family's precarious situation and movie-induced fantasies of glamour, beauty and mass attention. Raised in an orphanage after her mother's mental breakdown, Monroe, in Hyatt's portrait, seems in search of an honest emotional security that was always just beyond her grasp. What shines through is her devotion to acting (candidly critical of her own early talent, she worked hard to improve) and her perfectionism-a penchant for endless numbers of takes was not always appreciated by her directors. Hyatt focuses on several men: agent Johnny Hyde, who left his wife to devote himself to her early career; the sexually and economically exploitative studio bosses; and husband and playwright Arthur Miller, who in one arresting sequence announces their marriage on TV before consulting Monroe. Hyatt's drawing can be awkward and her subjects sometimes end up looking generic, but the surreal visual simplicity manages to sustain both narrative clarity and an affecting emotional undercurrent. (June)