Henry and June by Anais Nin (1986)

The unexpurgated (but heavily edited) diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-32, in which she meets Henry Miller and his wife June.

Nonfiction Review: Henry and June is one of the few well-known works by notorious diarist Anaïs Nin (1903-77), and was made into a 1990 film with Uma Thurman. Subtitled "from A Journal of Love," it's the first in that series (followed by Incest (1992), Fire (1987), and Nearer the Moon (1996)). Unlike Faulkner with his South or Toni Morrison on race, Nin found the subject of her oeuvre closer to home: herself. She was both canvas and painting. Nin found her life sufficient for examination and expression and her obsessive narcissism is mesmerizing. In Henry and June Nin, three or four lovers, a husband, and her analyst flirt, tease, manipulate, play games, prevaricate, agonize; they may or may not have sex throughout the book. And she gets a nose job. It all reads much like fiction. We witness Nin grow into her sexuality from near ignorance to eager participant. The reader begins to pity her husband who brings home the bacon while living in uneasy ignorance of her daily meanderings: "I really believe that if I were not a writer, not a creator, not an experimenter, I might have been a very faithful wife." June soon leaves the country and is mostly offstage, but lingers as a hovering presence beguiling both Nin and Miller as they pursue their affair together in her absence. We learn about Henry Miller and his writing (Tropic of Cancer is to be published) and she reflects on her own "enameled" fiction: "I wanted to go on in that abstract, intense way, but could anyone bear it ... for me there was meaning in those brocaded phrases." What's unclear to me is how this book was written, published years after her death. Seemingly, some unknown person (the introduction is in passive voice) went through Nin's unredacted diaries and removed everything quotidian leaving only the material relating to the title couple. Some editor found a way to continue to milk the infamous diaries. Regardless, Nin makes her life as interesting as possible, for the sake of her journal if nothing else. In Henry and June the reader just goes along for the ride.  [4★]