I first read this book 30 years ago. It was a big influence on me as a writer, and in terms of my fascination with old movies and Hollywood. Coming back to it much later, I still find it quite enchanting. The main character is partially based on Marilyn Monroe - same wretched childhood, same marriages to an athlete and a writer. However it is set in the Hollywood of the 1930s and 40s, whereas Marilyn came later. As regards Monroe, I think Grumbach gets one thing wrong - her 'Franny Fuller' is very passive, whereas MM, vulnerable as she was, was passionately engaged in creating her own image. I think Grumbach underestimates her in this respect, but even so her point is that star identity is only a cipher. So it shouldn't be taken too literally as a portrait of the 'real' Marilyn. In other respects Grumbach gets it absolutely right, far more so than other, more celebrated literary efforts to capture Monroe's essence. Perhaps this is because Grumbach shows a deep understanding of what is like to be an outsider. Franny's sense of disconnection from reality - seen by some as dumbness, but really an acute sensitivity - is very much like Marilyn and other fallen stars. The writing is, at best, exquisite. Although the real-life references are obvious - a barely-disguised Greta Garbo and John Gilbert also appear, along with several non-celebrities, including a stand-in, a nun, and an outcast black man - The Missing Person is not so much biographical fiction as a kind of expressionist painting in words.
