Review by Booklist Review
In 1962, Anaïs Nin, beautiful and mysterious, was struggling to find footing in America's literary world when Rainer, about to start college, met her in Greenwich Village, thanks to Rainer's godmother, the artist Lenore Tawney. Rainer was promptly bewitched, becoming an ardent disciple and reluctant co-conspirator in the lies that sustained Nin's secret trapeze existence as a woman with two husbands: the steadfast French banker Hugo Guiler in New York, and the much younger, no-less-devoted Californian, Rupert Pole. Rainer, who became an expert on diaries and memoir, candidly and vividly recounts her role in Nin's astoundingly duplicitous life in an irresistible mix of fact, memory, and storytelling she calls a novoir. Along with fresh insights into gender roles, Rainer offers stunning revelations about the publication of Nin's cagily edited diaries and the misplaced reverence the writer accrued as a feminist icon. Describing Nin as brave and dishonest, and a visionary of life itself as imaginative theater, Rainer brings this artist/goddess, who wrote to taste life twice, into sharper focus as Nin's unexpurgated diaries continue to be published.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Rainer (Your Life as Story) blends memoir and imagination in this engaging examination of her relationship with author Anaïs Nin. "I call this book a novoir-a memoir with true characters and actual dialogue, but with the structure and stylistic elements of a novel," Rainer says at the outset. Rainer first meets Nin in New York City in 1962 when her godmother sends her to pick up books from the famous diarist. Sheltered and virginal when she enters Nin's circle, Rainer is shocked to discover that Nin is a bigamist with husbands on both coasts, but before long Rainer is covering for her mentor. When Nin's The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934 is published in 1966, Nin becomes a feminist superstar and icon of the sexual revolution. Rainer, too, is on her way, pursuing a doctorate in English literature at UCLA, with her mentor happily speaking to Rainer's undergraduate students. Despite some ruptures between them, the pair remain close up until Nin's death from cancer in 1977. While the line between truth and imagination in this book is hard to discern at times, Rainer still manages to take readers on a fascinating personal journey. Agent: Stephany Evans, FinePrint Literary Management. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Getting to know lust, love, and Anas Nin (1903-1977).In 1962, a month before she turned 18, Rainer (Your Life as Story, 1997, etc.) met Cuban-born Nin, the noted diarist, famous lover of Henry Miller, and popular erotica author, at Nin's Greenwich Village apartment while on an errand for her godmother, Lenore Tawney, the noted fabric artist. Rainer was attending a Catholic high school and still a virgin. She met Nin's supportive husband, Hugo Guiler, Caresse Crosby, founder of Black Sun Press, and Nin's 30-something friend Jean-Jacques. In a Delta of Venus manner, the impressionable author describes how she went with them to a night club, danced, drank, smoked pot, and, later, experienced with Jean-Jacques what "todaywould likely be considered a form of date rape." So begins her spicy and saucy hybrid of memoir and novel. This gives her the freedom to fictionalize events and encounters whenever she feels it appropriate. Over the next 15 years, up to Nin's death in 1977, she became a close friend and mentor to Rainer, encouraging her writing and advising her on lifestyle mattersmostly sexual. Rainer became a devotee of Nin's philosophy of life: "A woman has an equal right to pleasure as a man." She was dazzled by Nin's persona, beauty, and sexual history. When Rainer became a college professorshe eventually went on to co-found the UCLA Women's Studies Programshe was able to have Nin give talks to her students. She enjoyed her new life of sexual freedom, the parties, new friends, and trips, many to visit Nin's other husband in California, the "gorgeous" Rupert Pole, getting herself awkwardly involved in Nin's secret, two-husband juggling act. Over time, she realized that Nin was a "deeply flawed persona narcissist, a bigamist, a liar, and a deviant," but she was also "so loveable." Feminists and fans of Nin's work will enjoy this unique insider's portrait of a complex, pivotal figure in women's liberation. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
