Joe and Marilyn - A Memory of Love written by Roger Kahn performed by Dick Hill on CD (Unabridged)

Roger Kahn turns his formidable skills on two calcified pop culture icons and makes them fresh and worthy of our attention.

Kahn reveals Joe DiMaggio as an Ordinary Joe who was grist for the sportswriters' mill, a comic-book reading kid who turns into a suspicious and haughty skirtchaser in New York. Kahn reminds us that Marilyn Monroe was a troubled girl who grew up to become a complicated woman of great ambition and intelligence but, sadly, was still troubled.

He weaves the tales of their lives into the context of their times and helps us understand what brought them together and tore them apart. Kahn pulls no punches, and perhaps tells us a bit more than we want to know, but he is a brilliant writer -- a brilliant writer -- who knows how to tell a tale so that it rings true and is entertaining at the same time.