All Marilyn’s Tomorrows: ‘Life Among the Cannibals’ Reissued

David Marshall is the author of The DD Group (2003), a highly regarded book investigating the circumstances of Marilyn’s death. In his 2009 novel, Life Among the Cannibals, Marshall took a different approach, imagining what path Marilyn’s life might have taken if she had survived her overdose in 1962.

Although fictional, Life Among the Cannibals is written in the style of a biography, with Marilyn recounting events in her career and personal life over the next 40 years to a journalist, ending with her death in 2003. Long out of print, it has now been reissued in digital and paperback formats and is available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers, or direct from the US publisher, iUniverse.

This second edition features a new cover, with Chris Chissell’s photo of tribute artist Suzie Kennedy evoking Marilyn’s 1955 photo shoot with Ed Feingersh. You can read my first edition review here, and my 2009 interview with David here.

“When Marilyn Monroe died in October 2003, she left behind the first volume of her memoirs (1926 to 1962), award-winning performances, and the memories of a thirty-five-year marriage. Now, after two and a half years of intensive research, (including interviews with noted figures such as Jane Fonda and Hilary Clinton, as well as Marilyn’s children, friends, and co-workers), a detailed accounting of the second half of this incredible life can be told. Utilising exclusive access to her personal papers granted by her family, Life Among the Cannibals 1962-2003 chronicles not only Monroe’s response to the war and assassinations of the Sixties, her encounters with the likes of Janis Joplin, Pat Nixon, and Mikhail Gorbachev, but traces her evolution from sex symbol to Hollywood’s Conscience. Above all, now in a special 20th Anniversary Edition, Life Among the Cannibals puts an end to the innuendo and speculation surrounding the life and career of one of the 20th century’s most beloved figures.”