These are the first books that i have read by Max Allan Collins. He is a prolific writer with a host of credits to his name. He lives in Iowa with his wife Barbara, a fellow author, who often corroborates with him. She is his Marilyn Monroe lookalike wife. I am more or less betting that because he loves his own wife so much he is able to create a love for Marilyn in the character of Nate Heller. I do not really believe that any of the men she married or slept with really loved her. I think they used her. She was a prize to them, to be able to say that they had made her.
If I were to give men advice on how to treat women, I would say honestly give her a lot of attention, say nice things to her, and treat her with consideration and kindness. I personally dislike men who put women down, who are insulting, rude, and competitive, and threatening to them. I do not like physical or emotional abuse in either films, books, or real life attitudes or behavior.
Marilyn in this book takes too many beatings from the men who have used and abused her. For some stupid reason, men seem to think that women are punching bags, and I do not like it at all. Never lay a hand on a woman except with a loving and kind touch...do not smash her face, bruise her, or insult her in any way.
Joe DiMaggio hit her, caused her great pain, but pretended that he loved her. Even Bobby Kennedy in the book is said to have struck her. Whether he struck her in the face or what, I do not know, but in the storyline he hits her physically as well as screams and rants at her.
Books are powerful tools to use in impacting readers, and even characters whether real life or imaginary do make a difference in a person's intake of the book being read. An important aspect of this book is the feeling that the author has toward Bobby Kennedy. Through the study of the attorney general's relationship with Marilyn, we find that he is not the ideal candidate or character that he might have wanted us to believe him to be. But finally, he seems to gather strength to continue to wage war against the bad guys so that the detective thinks that there is still some hope that Bobby may be a person who could be trusted to keep his word to clean up crime after all.
The gangsters who had helped to put his brother into office through typical Democratic shenanigans did expect to be honored and rewarded when helping the Kennedy family get their desired goal, which is the White House of course, but Bobby who was trying to clean out the very gangs who had helped him to be in his powerful position made enemies...which may have cost his brother his life as a result...it then cost Bobby his job...He could no longer wipe out the Mafia bosses. It is an irony, and this book makes it clear that Joe Kennedy had worked with the Mafia to build his business, and that Jack had even worked with them to get elected, and used them to try to get Castro. It is a very strange story which finally sounds realistic and plausible at last.
Like I said, when I was a young girl, I heard people tell my mother that she looked like Phyllis McGuire. So when I saw her name mentioned in this book, it refreshed my memory of those days in Ohio. My mother was very pretty but I did not see that she looked like Phyllis but we all became aware of her relationship with Sam Giancana after that...Then Phyllis was famous for the diamond that he had given to her. It was a huge diamond. What is funny is that people would tell me years later in California that I looked like Nancy Sinatra...Go figure...I never really saw that either but I did see her twice. I even saw her brother Frank Jr. in Las Vegas, but never Frank, Sr. I did see Elvis which is where I saw Nancy first time round. I saw her later at the Gold Nugget downtown in the ladies restroom...very interesting to say the least...
It is a small world, isn't it?
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