The Nearness of Light: Sandburg & Monroe An Intimate Conversation

By: Starbuck, Ron

THE NEARNESS OF LIGHT

What if one brief meeting had been allowed to deepen?

In this imagined encounter between Carl Sandburg and Marilyn Monroe, the playwright moves beyond the historical record into a space of quiet possibility-where the brightness of public life gives way to something more searching, more exact: clarity.

Set in the softening light of late afternoon, The Nearness of Light unfolds as a conversation about identity, perception, and the distance between who we are and how we are seen. As the dialogue deepens, the familiar image begins to loosen. Monroe emerges not as an icon, but as a mind-attentive, questioning, and inwardly alive. Sandburg listens without intrusion, making space for what might finally be said.

What takes shape is not a reconstruction, but a quiet restoration: a movement from surface to interior, from performance to presence, from visibility to truth.

Spare, lyrical, and contemplative, this is a work that invites the reader not simply to observe, but to enter the stillness where something real may be spoken-and, perhaps, truly heard.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1955194548
• ISBN13: 9781955194549
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Saint Julian Press, Inc.
• Length: 94 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"