Non-Fiction Book Review - 'My Sister Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe' by Berniece Baker Miracle and Mona Rae Miracle

Another pretty solid biography of the legendary Marilyn Monroe, that is a memoir told by her older half sister, Berniece Baker Miracle.

I am very surprised to learn that, apparently, Berniece and Marilyn were so close - at least a bit later on, after their childhoods, when they finally knew each other's existence - and that Berniece was absolutely involved in Marilyn's life and affairs, because in all the other biographies I've read about the starlet, her sister is barely mentioned, if at all. I guess some people from her family, and personal details, had to be downplayed and cut for simplicity's sake.

Marilyn truly had a fascinating, varied, multifaceted life, containing so many people who influenced and shaped her. And loved her.

'My Sister Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe' is a lovely, sweet, genuine, and well written memoir at 200 pages. The mundane, everyday stuff that the two women got up to together - two ordinary women, despite one of them being world famous, and both of them being constant targets by paparazzi - are just as interesting as the behind the scenes drama of Marilyn's films, which the book minimally details.

It is indeed about Marilyn the person, the human, and less about her as a glamourous movie star. A mirage movie star, a put-upon image.

Marilyn Monroe, or Norma Jeane Mortenson/Baker, was, in truth, a very special, wonderful, loving, hardworking, human woman.

I am glad to read that she had always had family who loved her, no matter what. Who tried to be there for her, and never gave up on her, up to the days towards her tragic end, and decades beyond.

Berniece always loved her sister, and she wanted to tell her story - both women's story, their story. Hence 'My Sister Marilyn', which is as much about herself as it is about her famous sibling, whom she cared for deeply and never envied, throughout all the price (press) of fame, stress, and tragedy.

The little book is funny as all hell, too. What a great many family anecdotes and tidbits!

'My Sister Marilyn' also contains more info about Marilyn and Berniece's mentally ill mother Gladys than I have read in other biographies. Same with Berniece's husband Paris and their daughter, Mona Rae, who also cowrote the book.

What a mother and daughter (and aunt!) dream team the women made.

Included on pages 105-127 is 'Illustrations and Family Tree - "These Are Our Memories..."': black and white photos of Berniece and Marilyn, plus other family members (and friends and guardians), throughout their lives, and letters, invitations, postcards and tickets, and a family tree.

No one's life can be told simply, straightforwardly and structurally, like a cut-and-dried, three act movie, as I've leaned from reading these Marilyn biographies.

I definitely recommend 'My Sister Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe' to Marilyn Monroe fans, alongside:


'Marilyn Monroe: By Eve Arnold'

'My Story'

'Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed'

'The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist'


A human and personal story, full of love, perseverance, family ties, and unbroken bonds.

Final Score: 4/5