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In Marilyn (1973), Mailer suggests that American identity has been built over a chasm, a void. For all its seeming robustness the country has a hollow core and is forever in search of its roots. Similarly, Marilyn Monroe constructs a successful career upon a questionable base and is constantly in pursuit of a stable source of inspiration and strength. The person and the nation are self-made but vulnerable because neither feels quite legitimate. America and Monroe grow up invalidated; each is an experiment, an invention that has to supply its own reasons for existence.

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