Joyce Carol Oates once said Blonde is the book she’ll most likely be remembered for. Its 700+ pages are a fascinating descent into the mind of Marilyn Monroe who died at age 36 in 1962. It is, though, a work of complete fiction as Oates has repeatedly said. In Blonde, she envisions just what Monroe might’ve been thinking at key intervals of her life. The subject matter is ripe for invention as there are just as many conspiracy theories on her death as there are on the death of one of her lovers, President Kennedy.