Marilyn and Me – Ji-min Lee

A gripping and heartwrenching novel of damage and survival, grief and unexpected solace, Marilyn and Me is a fascinating – and timely – insight into an extraordinary time and place. Set in 1954, in the aftermath of the Korean war, Marilyn and Me unfolds over the course of four days, when Marilyn Monroe – who was meant to be on honeymoon with Joe DiMaggio – toured Korea, performing for the US soldiers stationed there. Her translator is Alice, a typist on the US base – where she is the only Korean woman to make a living off the American military without being a prostitute (although everyone assumes she is).As these two women begin an unlikely friendship, the story of Alice’s traumatic experience in the war emerges, and when she becomes embroiled in a sting operation involving the entrapment of a Communist spy she is forced to confront the past she has been trying so hard to forget.