Author Talk with Lyn Cullen

They were an unlikely pair—a blond bombshell and a photographer determined to be taken seriously—but Marilyn Monroe and Eve Arnold would make a deal that would change their lives in this dazzling new novel from the national bestselling author of Mrs. Poe and The Woman with the Cure.

In 1952, Norma Jeane Baker follows documentary photographer Eve Arnold into a powder room on the night they first meet. She has a proposition for her. Norma Jeane created Marilyn Monroe to be photographed, and she wants Eve to do it. Eve is better than anyone she’s seen at revealing a person’s inner truth. Together they can help each other. Together, she says, they can make something brilliant.

Skeptical of this cipher of a young woman, Eve demurs. She’s looking for more serious subjects than this ambitious starlet. But she keeps getting drawn back into Marilyn’s orbit, and the women come to recognize something in each other—something fundamental. Nothing will get in the way of what they want, and when Marilyn’s star takes off to teetering heights, neither will ever be the same.

A lavish and transporting novel, When We Were Brilliant captures the halcyon days of an icon and the grit of women determining their own futures as it explores the exceptional and complicated friendship between Marilyn Monroe and Eve Arnold.

Books will be available for sale and signing.

Lynn Cullen’s bestselling novels, including The Woman with the Cure, The Sisters of Summit Avenue, Mrs. Poe, Twain’s End, The Creation of Eve, and Reign of Madness, have been translated into seventeen languages and are the recipients of various honors, including NPR Great Read, Oprah Book of the Week, People Magazine Book of the Week, Indie Next Selection, and Atlanta Magazine Best of the Year.

Moderator Colleen Oakley is the USA Today bestselling author of Jan and Dan and the End of the World, The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, You Were There Too, Close Enough to Touch, and Before I Go. Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages worldwide and have won multiple awards, including the Georgia Author of the Year and the French Reader’s Prize.

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