The Boy Who Took Marilyn to the Prom
A Novel
Henry Massie
Archway Publishing from Simon & Schuster, summer 2021
The Boy Who Took Marilyn to the Prom is a work of fiction. Two events inspired the book: Near the end of her life Marilyn Monroe’s last psychiatrist tried to save her from depression by welcoming her into his home to give her a family life which she had never had. The doctor’s 17-year-old son took Marilyn to his senior prom at Hollywood High School. The actress was 35, looking no older than a college coed. Years later, the son having become a prominent psychiatrist himself, encounters a patient who reminds him of the Marilyn. This rekindles his memory of what happened between him and the actress in the early morning hours after the dance, which drives him toward breaching the sexual boundary between patient and therapist.
REVIEWS
"...mesmerizing...grippingly strange, poignantly melancholic, and psychologically sophisticated." -Kirkus Reviews
Jean-Marie Apostolides, author of The Audience and Professor of Theater and Performance at Stanford University, terms The Boy Who Took Marilyn to the Prom, “Captivating, always surprising, accurate and welcome.”
Bridget Connelly, prizewinning author of Forgetting Ireland, says that is “Intrepid, vivid, thoughtful. It takes us inside the psychotherapy office, face to face with the dangers psychiatrists and their patients run of becoming slaves to their feelings.”
Cheryl Colopy, prizewinning author of Dirty Sacred Rivers calls the novel “Gripping and convincing.”