When We Were Brilliant by Lynn Cullen

 

Publisher: Berkley

On Sale Date: January 20 2026

Pages: 400

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

New York, 1952; Eve Arnold is a documentary photographer in her twenties who works for the Magnum Photography agency, which is a small world dominated by men, who often don't take her work that is different and original and has its own specific style, serious.

One night at an event where Eve is attending, she meets Norma Jean Baker in the powder room. Norma Jean Baker is a superstar as Marilyn Monroe. She created her character of Marilyn Monroe to be photographed and to be in the spotlight as much as possible, and she has a proposition for Eve; she wants her to be her personal photographer, as she has seen her work, which shows the true person in the pictures. And so their professional partnership and friendship starts, and Eve photographes Marilyn everywhere, and so she learns more about who Marilyn/Norma Jean Baker is, and follows her during her ups and downs in her turbulent life in the spotlight. Marilyn is more in the spotlight because of Eve's pictures, and Eve's is getting more well known because her work for Marilynn. The story is fiction, but is build on two women who really existed. Eve is married and has a young son, her marriage truly has to endure a lot of her abscence because her work for Marilyn. The book is a story of friendship, and the challenges women who had a proffessional career in the 1950's and 60's.

The story is well written, but as a reader I found the story and the character lacking depth. The characters of Eve and Marilyn stayed very one dimensional during the whole length of the story. I truly would like to see more depth in character for Marilyn, but she stayed the  blonde starlet and not more different then that, except for some traumatic childhood experiences she shared with Eve, she doesn't really grew as a person in this book. Eve has her own struggles as a woman aspiring a career as a professional photographer in a world of photographer agencies dominated by men, and at home with a  young child and husband who is developing board games but is anything but successfull, in that time it was not usual to be the breadwinner in a marriage and this leads to friction in her marriage, also because she is often not at home because of her work. Her character stays the same in the book, and besides of making it as a photographer with and because of Marilyn, her charachter doesn't make much progress. She photographs and attends events with many famous people together with Marilyn, which became very repetitive.

The overall idea of this story was nice, but the story and character lacked depth and progress, and I truly wanted to like this book more then I actually did..