NOBODY ‘OWNS’ MARILYN

I felt a chill when I saw that Maurice Zolotow was reviewing my novel “Marilyn’s Daughter” (Book Review, Oct. 1). My book is a serious exploration into the origin of legends and their power over truth, a legend about legends, about Normalyn Morgan who comes to believe that she may be the daughter of Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy. It is not a biography of Marilyn Monroe.

Zolotow is becoming known for his cranky possessiveness about Marilyn Monroe’s life, his cantankerous resentment of others who write about her, apparently even in fiction.

Zolotow’s review, however, makes me doubly gratified to see in the same issue of Book Review (Endpapers) a laudatory appraisal of my first novel, “City of Night.” Twenty-five years ago, it, too, received reviews as nasty as Zolotow’s.

JOHN RECHY

LOS ANGELES