Of Women and Their Elegance

The book uses photographs taken by Milton H. Greene in combination with real interviews of Monroe and fictional events that Mailer invents.

There are also photos by Greene of other celebrities like Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, and Jane Fonda.

The majority of the book is centered on Monroe's conversations and interactions with Greene and Arthur Miller, her third husband.

Mailer anticipated criticism for writing an imaginary memoir about Monroe, so in the November 10, 1980, issue of New York Magazine, he wrote a piece defending Of Women and Their Elegance.

"[1] Mailer stated that he knew he would receive backlash for creating fictional interviews and stories as if they were real but that he wanted readers not to dismiss his work before they had read it.