"On January 14, 1977...at 11:55 p.m. Anaïs made the transvoyage into her 'World of Music.' Her passover was a blessing, relieving her of over two years of constant pain and misery. She wished her ashes to be scattered from an airplane into the Pacific Ocean where they will be carried to all parts of the world. She wishes you to celebrate her by reading." When she died, the willow tree outside her window died with her. A few weeks later Rupert cut it down and dug up the stump. He never replaced the willow that had wept over the dark green pool, shedding its fragile leaves into the emerald water, while Anaïs lay dying.

It could be argued that it was mere chance that drew Barbara Kraft, a young aspiring writer, into friendship with each party of one of literature's most famous love affairs: Anais Nin, and then Henry Miller; yet, upon reflection, it seems it was meant to be. In 1974 Kraft signed up for a writing course with Nin only months before the discovery of the cancer that would end the famous diarist's life two years later, and Kraft would prove to be a faithful and dependable friend and companion until the end. During this time, Kraft kept a diary detailing the events of her relationship with Nin, which would become the heart of her acclaimed memoir Anais Nin: The Last Days. Only months after Nin's death, Kraft attended a "Q & A" talk by Henry Miller and, inspired by his dynamism, did a "crash" rereading of much of his work. This rediscovery led to Kraft writing and reading "An Open Letter to Henry Miller" on an NPR station, which Miller eventually heard and admired. Wanting to meet Kraft, Miller invited her to cook dinner for him, and, of course, to engage in a long and interesting talk with him, a habit Miller developed during his destitute days in 1930s Paris when he made sure he was invited for lunch and dinner in exchange for good conversation each day of the week. While no longer destitute, and in failing health, the ritual of dinner and conversation kept on until the very end. Kraft became one of Miller's sixteen regular cooks, and she developed not only a comradery with him, but a mutually nurturing friendship for the last two years of his life. This memoir is an inside look at the chaos that ruled the famous house on Ocampo Drive in Pacific Palisades, the long stream of people who lived or crashed there, the revolving door of seekers, celebrities, scholars and filmmakers, and how Miller maintained a fulfilling and creative life in the midst of all the commotion. We see the dynamics of Miller's relationships with his family, his young love interest and those who professed to care for him as his health declined. We discover how some sought to exploit him and how others rose to the occasion when he needed help. It is a highly personal story in which Kraft captures Miller's conversations so perfectly that one can imagine his voice uttering the words. Henry Miller: The Last Days is a celebration of Miller's indomitable spirit as his body failed him, his rebellion against old age, his refusal to give in, his never-ending submission to the creative urge, his battle to preserve his right to dinner, wine and talk even if it meant superhuman effort. It is the story of how one of America's most celebrated writers could have died alone in a house full of strangers. After absorbing Barbara Kraft's sensitive and yet bold narrative, one cannot help but have even more respect for Henry Miller's courage and humility, and rejoice in his final triumph."

"Mysterious, glamorous, intellectual . . . with vivid language and lush scenes, this memoir makes for an exciting read." —Bust Magazine. Named a "Best Summer Read" by Elle Magazine! A Revealing Look at the Mentorship—and Manipulation—of Anaïs Nin In 1962, eighteen-year-old Tristine Rainer was sent on an errand to Anaïs Nin’s West Village apartment. The chance meeting would change the course of her life and begin her years as Anaïs’s accomplice, keeping her mentor’s confidences—including that of her bigamy—even after Anaïs Nin’s death and the passing of her husbands, until now. Set in the underground literary worlds of Manhattan and Los Angeles during the sixties and seventies, Tristine charts her coming of age under the guidance of the infamous Anaïs Nin: author of the erotic bestseller Delta of Venus, lover to Henry Miller, Parisian diarist, and feminist icon of the sexual revolution. As an inexperienced college-bound girl from the San Fernando Valley, Tristine was dazzled by the sophisticated bohemian author and sought her instruction in becoming a woman. Tristine became a fixture of Anaïs’s inner circle, implicated in the mysterious author’s daring intrigues—while simultaneously finding her own path through love, lust, and loss. From personal memories to dramatized scenarios based on Anaïs’s revelations to the author, Apprenticed to Venus blurs the lines between novel and memoir to bring to life a seductive and entertaining character—the pioneer whose mantra was, "A woman has as much right to pleasure as a man!"

The fourth volume of “one of the most remarkable diaries in the history of letters” (Los Angeles Times). The renowned diarist continues her record of her personal, professional, and artistic life, recounting her experiences in Greenwich Village for several years in the late 1940s, where she defends young writers against the Establishment—and her trip across the country in an old Ford to California and Mexico. “[Nin is] one of the most extraordinary and unconventional writers of [the twentieth] century.” —The New York Times Book Review Edited and with a preface by Gunther Stuhlmann

The trailblazing memoirist and author of Henry & June recounts her relationships with Henry Miller and others—including her own father. Anaïs Nin wrote in her uncensored diaries like they were a broad-minded confidante with whom she shared the liberating psychosexual dramas of her life. In this continuation of her notorious Henry & June, she recounts a particularly turbulent period between 1932 and 1934, and the men who dominated it: her protective husband, her therapist, and the poet Antonin Artaud. However, most consuming of all is novelist Henry Miller—a man whose genius, said Anaïs, was so demonic it could drive people insane. Here too, recounted in extraordinary detail, is the sexual affair she had with her father. At once loving, exciting, and vengeful, it was the ultimate social transgression for which Anaïs would eventually seek absolution from her analysts. “Before Lena Dunham there was Anaïs Nin. Like Dunham, she’s been accused of narcissism, sociopathy, and sexual perversion time and again. Yet even that comparison undercuts the strangeness and bravery of her work, for Nin was the first of her kind. And, like all truly unique talents, she was worshipped by some, hated by many, and misunderstood by most . . . A woman who’d spent decades on the bleeding edge of American intellectual life, a woman who had been a respected colleague of male writers who pushed the boundaries of acceptable sex writing. Like many great . . . experimentalists, she wrote for a world that did not yet exist, and so helped to bring it into being.” —The Guardian Includes an introduction by Rupert Pole

A PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year National Book Award-winning biographer Deirdre Bair explores her fifteen remarkable years in Paris with Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir, painting intimate new portraits of two literary giants and revealing secrets of the biographical art. In 1971 Deirdre Bair was a journalist and recently minted Ph.D. who managed to secure access to Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett. He agreed that she could be his biographer despite her never having written—or even read—a biography before. The next seven years comprised of intimate conversations, intercontinental research, and peculiar cat-and-mouse games. Battling an elusive Beckett and a string of jealous, misogynistic male writers, Bair persevered. She wrote Samuel Beckett: A Biography, which went on to win the National Book Award and propel Deirdre to her next subject: Simone de Beauvoir. The catch? De Beauvoir and Beckett despised each other—and lived essentially on the same street. Bair learned that what works in terms of process for one biography rarely applies to the next. Her seven-year relationship with the domineering and difficult de Beauvoir required a radical change in approach, yielding another groundbreaking literary profile and influencing Bair’s own feminist beliefs. Parisian Lives draws on Bair’s extensive notes from the period, including never-before-told anecdotes. This gripping memoir is full of personality and warmth and gives us an entirely new window on the all-too-human side of these legendary thinkers.