Adam Braver's fictionalized Marilyn Monroe

"Misfit" is a fictionalized version of the life of Marilyn Monroe that ultimately leads up to the mysteries around her death.

Author Adam Braver was no expert on Monroe when he started writing the novel. But once he started diving into the research, his intrigue propelled him forward.

"It was one of the hardest books that I have written. The story is so complex," Braver says from his office at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, where he is an associate professor and writer in residence. "What interested me was she was this character, and who is the real person underneath all of these characters she created. But also how she kept reinventing herself was very fascinating. Then she reinvented herself into something that was no longer owned by her."

He found his general "Wikipedia knowledge" of Marilyn Monroe to be to his advantage when he started the book.

"I didn't have a sense of protecting her, and during the process I found myself at times very seduced by her and at other times very frustrated by her and sometimes sympathetic, and that was my ongoing relationship with her and that's what kept me interested," he says. "She is really complex."

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His previous novels are also based on historical figures. It wasn't in his original plan when he was in graduate school. It was there he started writing stories about Abraham Lincoln. "I kept thinking about how his son had died while he was in the White House and how he was in charge of a war. I started writing short stories and kept them to myself, but they eventually became my first book," Braver says.

There are times during the process of writing where it messes with his head.

"I have to remind myself that I'm dealing with real people and not with characters," he says. "When you have a fictional character, you start to see that character in your own head. There's another level to that with me where they start with real people and become fictional characters who become real people to me and I have to remember those real people are real people."

Braver currently resides in Rhode Island, but he was born in Berkeley and lived in the Mission District as a kid. After he graduated college he lived in the Inner Sunset for 19 years.

For his next project, he was ready to work on a novel that didn't deal with historical figures. Then he came upon Kay Summersby, a driver for Eisenhower in World War II. There are rumors about them having an affair, and she's a very unlikely woman, who was based on the front lines of history.

"She's kind of a Zelig character, where you look at pictures of world leaders, and there she is in the background," he says. "I'm very intrigued and writing short pieces about her."

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