Is it possible that Marilyn Monroe gave birth to an illegitimate daughter by Robert Kennedy shortly before she died in 1962? Following the suicide of Enid Morgan in 1980, her 18-year-old daughter, Normalyn, finds a shocking note saying that her real mother was Monroe, Enid's longtime friend. Desperate to learn the truth, Normalyn arrives in California to question a Pulitzer Prize-winning author obsessed with Monroe's last days, an aging gossip columnist who loathed the blonde actress and a married couple formerly employed by Monroe's movie studio to sanitize the star's public images. Rechy also spotlights the pathetic, debauched lives of have-nots Normalyn meets, such as Troja, a black transsexual who performs as Monroe's daughter in a tawdry nightclub, and the ghoulish members of a cult group called the Dead Movie Stars.