This is a worthwhile read. I will be reading more Heymann biographies. ( )

Meticulously researched, this very well written, insightful book provided details into the lives of two incredibly complex super stars.

Volatile, turbulent, obsessive, damaged, dysfunctional, sensational and tragic, the relationship between Joe DiMaggio, baseball's record-setting hero, and Marilyn Monroe, America's sex Goddess, is as difficult to describe as the deep psychological problems both seemed to exhibit.

The marriage lasted a short nine months. The relationship lasted as long as one of them was alive. Long after her death, DiMaggio had roses delivered to her grave three times a week.

She was unfaithful throughout the many years of their attempts to reconcile. He was a brutal, angry man who was not adverse to slugging her face with the same speed and accuracy as he hit a baseball.

Promiscuous and self defined as a sex symbol, while Marilyn talked of breaking away from this stereotypical role, her behaviors always pushed all envelopes of societal approval.

Thriving scandal, Marilyn simply could not help by spin out of control Narcissistic, Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund, deemed her schizophrenic with an extreme character disorder. Hailing from a close knit Italian family, Joe's idea of a woman's role in the kitchen, would never conform to the need to be in the glaring public limelight that Marilyn craved.

Throughout the years, as she allowed other men to use and discard her, Joe remained the one and only stable force in her life.

Three and 1/2 stars! ( )