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Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin
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. In what Kirkus calls a “spicy and saucy hybrid of memoir and novel,” Apprenticed to Venus brings to life a seductive and entertaining character —the pioneer whose mantra was, “A woman has as much right to pleasure as a man!”
An intimate look at the intricacies—and risks—of the female mentor-protégé relationship, Tristine Rainer’s Apprenticed to Venus stories her deep friendship, for good or ill, with a pivotal historical figure.
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. In what Kirkus calls a “spicy and saucy hybrid of memoir and novel,” Apprenticed to Venus brings to life a seductive and entertaining character —the pioneer whose mantra was, “A woman has as much right to pleasure as a man!”
An intimate look at the intricacies—and risks—of the female mentor-protégé relationship, Tristine Rainer’s Apprenticed to Venus stories her deep friendship, for good or ill, with a pivotal historical figure.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published July 11, 2017
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458 people want to read
About the author
Tristine Rainer
16 books54 followersTristine Rainer, Ph.D, is a pioneer in the fields of contemporary journal writing and narrative autobiography. Her book The New Diary, how to use a journal for self-guidance and expanded creativity has sold over 200,000 copies and has been used as a text in university Psychology and Occupational Therapy courses, although her degree was in English Lit. After a quarter of a century in print The New Diary will see a new, revised edition in 2004. Her book Your Life as Story, Writing the New Autobiography, published in 1997 hit the Los Angeles Times bestseller list and is presently being used as a text in many college writing programs.
Rainer is the founder and director of the Center for Autobiographic Studies, a non-profit educational organization that encourages the creation and preservation of autobiographic works. A founder of UCLA’s Women’s Studies Program, Rainer was also a grad student there. She taught personal writing for 25 years through the English Departments at UCLA and at Indiana University, with her friend and mentor Anaïs Nin for International College, through the UCLA Extension Writers program, and privately as a writer's coach to a diverse array of clients, many of whom have successfully published autobiographic books with her assistance. She is currently an adjunct professor within the Masters of Professional Writing Program at USC. http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/mpw
In a whole separate life, Rainer wrote and produced four award winning network movies for television based on true life stories. It was this experience of shaping stories in the trenches, she says, that gave her the key to how teach anyone to transform their own life experience into a compelling story.
Copyright 2005 Center for Autobiographic Studies
Rainer is the founder and director of the Center for Autobiographic Studies, a non-profit educational organization that encourages the creation and preservation of autobiographic works. A founder of UCLA’s Women’s Studies Program, Rainer was also a grad student there. She taught personal writing for 25 years through the English Departments at UCLA and at Indiana University, with her friend and mentor Anaïs Nin for International College, through the UCLA Extension Writers program, and privately as a writer's coach to a diverse array of clients, many of whom have successfully published autobiographic books with her assistance. She is currently an adjunct professor within the Masters of Professional Writing Program at USC. http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/mpw
In a whole separate life, Rainer wrote and produced four award winning network movies for television based on true life stories. It was this experience of shaping stories in the trenches, she says, that gave her the key to how teach anyone to transform their own life experience into a compelling story.
Copyright 2005 Center for Autobiographic Studies
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
May 26, 2017
There are fateful decisions which mark one for life. Young Tristine Rainer’s decision to make charismatic, enigmatic Anais Nin her mentor unfolds into a tale suspenseful as a thriller. Artfully crafted memoir of a high-wire act, the advantages and perils of a vulnerable young person’s intimacy with a glamorous, seductive, brilliant and dangerous mentor. Revelations, especially toward the end of the book, changed my understanding of the Nin story.
The apprentice mentor relationship has elements of a mother daughter story, of a friendship, of a power relationship, the push pull of needs, for the mentor helps the apprentice, but the apprentice also serves the mentor’s needs—a dangerous, unwholesome relationship that in the end proved to have been worthwhile, showing how how becoming so intimately and trustingly involved in the life of a very glamorous person one adores can have both beneficial and dangerous effect on one’s life.
Being an Apprentice to Venus is a job requiring fortitude and loyalty of a type only a very young person can really deliver. It was fascinating to see behind the scenes of the trapeze years of Nin’s life as she recruited a young admiring Angelino, Tristine Rainer, to be her accomplice in keeping her two marriges alive and, more importantly, apart. I wanted to warn young Rainer, ‘don’t get involved!’ in such a high wire act, and yet I was fascinated to see Nin through eyes so clear as well as so naïve, and also to watch how the friendship affected the girl—aside from her backbreaking chore of running interference between Nin and the men in her life. Rainer's first sexual encounter, and her first love affair can be directly traced to Nin’s affect on the prim young girl in 1962. Usually in these kinds of memoirs, one wants to hear less about the author and more about the blazingly charismatic object of their fascination, but in this book, I was equally interested in following in the development of Rainer from that young, eager naïf to the seasoned sophisticate she will become
I will never stop loving Anais Nin, and her mystery and allegiance to passion. As was the case with so many young women writers, Nin inspired me to pick up a pen. I envisioned my own writing life and personal dramas as I read those early diaries. She was a such beguiling figure--especially as she presented herself in those books, whose compilation Rainer describes beautifully-- but my contemporary self, now the same age as Renata Druks and Anais, is exhausted reading about her double life, and the vows and secrets and whirl of self-importance.
But Nin really didn’t ever grow up and become a woman who says, “there are more important things in life than my own emotional dramas. What I could do if I could just settle down and write?” I can see why young woman like myself were so attracted to her—she was so big and dramatic and elusive and glamorous. But it sure is a lot of work to live at that high flame. In this memoir, young Rainer glories in it, while the current Rainer watches on—one has to imagine in both remembered pleasure and the horror that perspective can give. As I read on I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. (And drop it did.)
Aside from the initial meeting of Tristine and Anais, and their party in Harlem, and her sexual encounter with Jean Jaques, My favorite place is on p. 162, a moment of perspective around Anais’s keeping of the Lie Box, keeping track of her elaborate falsehoods told to both men, which after they overflowed the box in her purse, she went on to keep in two strongboxes, one on each coast. (The one in New York she kept in a secret closet she’d had installed in her apartment--so James Bond!)... She felt it was out of compassion that she couldn’t abandon either man, rather than face the fact that she wanted what she wanted:the safety of the one and the ripping sex with the other. It wasn't quite compassion--in truth, she couldn't bear to see her deception mirrored in the eyes of another, and thus step into the role of her abandoning father, the villain of her life. Not seeing that she was her father. Instead, she imagines each man opening that strongbox of her secrets and lies. How it would kill each of them.
“Such nightmares, along with panic attacks of guilt, became her way of life. She was the accountant of her bigamy; keeping double books, ever fearful of discovery as a love embezzler."
“When Anais was most honest with herself [and one wonders if this was revealed in a conversation, or if it is the author’s imagining} she recognized there were advantages to her trapeze. For one thing, her cyclical appearances and disappearances kept her marriages fresh. Her husbands never tired of her because, unlike the usual wife, she couldn not be taken for granted. When she was gone, each man longed for her as for an absent mistress."
“For another thing, her double life tempered her restlessness. After her affair in Paris with Henry Miller, she had been infected with Henry’s lust and taste for variety, a greater threat to her marriage to Hugo than this predictable pendulum. Now she no longer picked up men at parties, no longer engaged in affairs. Her need for adventure, her appetite for wildness, was satisfied."
“Sometimes she could even see humor in her high wire act, and sometimes it gave her an almost insane high... Aloft, she was Sabina—who defied life’s cruel restrictions of one love, one spouse, one life, one self.”
There is something about the young girl meddling, involving herself in the complicated life of this mysterious older woman that itself seems fraught with danger, keeping us turning the page.
It was especially interesting to read this book in tandem with the new unexpurgated diary "Trapeze"--just released --which has Anais's own perspective of the events into which young Rainer stumbled.
Beautifully told, toggling between novelistic renditions of Nin's situation to Rainer's own life, "Apprenticed to Venus" is absolutely spellbinding, I could not put it down. And in the last chapters, certain mysteries about Nin which have always puzzled Nin lovers and scholars are resolved in an explosive way. Read to the end!!!
The apprentice mentor relationship has elements of a mother daughter story, of a friendship, of a power relationship, the push pull of needs, for the mentor helps the apprentice, but the apprentice also serves the mentor’s needs—a dangerous, unwholesome relationship that in the end proved to have been worthwhile, showing how how becoming so intimately and trustingly involved in the life of a very glamorous person one adores can have both beneficial and dangerous effect on one’s life.
Being an Apprentice to Venus is a job requiring fortitude and loyalty of a type only a very young person can really deliver. It was fascinating to see behind the scenes of the trapeze years of Nin’s life as she recruited a young admiring Angelino, Tristine Rainer, to be her accomplice in keeping her two marriges alive and, more importantly, apart. I wanted to warn young Rainer, ‘don’t get involved!’ in such a high wire act, and yet I was fascinated to see Nin through eyes so clear as well as so naïve, and also to watch how the friendship affected the girl—aside from her backbreaking chore of running interference between Nin and the men in her life. Rainer's first sexual encounter, and her first love affair can be directly traced to Nin’s affect on the prim young girl in 1962. Usually in these kinds of memoirs, one wants to hear less about the author and more about the blazingly charismatic object of their fascination, but in this book, I was equally interested in following in the development of Rainer from that young, eager naïf to the seasoned sophisticate she will become
I will never stop loving Anais Nin, and her mystery and allegiance to passion. As was the case with so many young women writers, Nin inspired me to pick up a pen. I envisioned my own writing life and personal dramas as I read those early diaries. She was a such beguiling figure--especially as she presented herself in those books, whose compilation Rainer describes beautifully-- but my contemporary self, now the same age as Renata Druks and Anais, is exhausted reading about her double life, and the vows and secrets and whirl of self-importance.
But Nin really didn’t ever grow up and become a woman who says, “there are more important things in life than my own emotional dramas. What I could do if I could just settle down and write?” I can see why young woman like myself were so attracted to her—she was so big and dramatic and elusive and glamorous. But it sure is a lot of work to live at that high flame. In this memoir, young Rainer glories in it, while the current Rainer watches on—one has to imagine in both remembered pleasure and the horror that perspective can give. As I read on I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. (And drop it did.)
Aside from the initial meeting of Tristine and Anais, and their party in Harlem, and her sexual encounter with Jean Jaques, My favorite place is on p. 162, a moment of perspective around Anais’s keeping of the Lie Box, keeping track of her elaborate falsehoods told to both men, which after they overflowed the box in her purse, she went on to keep in two strongboxes, one on each coast. (The one in New York she kept in a secret closet she’d had installed in her apartment--so James Bond!)... She felt it was out of compassion that she couldn’t abandon either man, rather than face the fact that she wanted what she wanted:the safety of the one and the ripping sex with the other. It wasn't quite compassion--in truth, she couldn't bear to see her deception mirrored in the eyes of another, and thus step into the role of her abandoning father, the villain of her life. Not seeing that she was her father. Instead, she imagines each man opening that strongbox of her secrets and lies. How it would kill each of them.
“Such nightmares, along with panic attacks of guilt, became her way of life. She was the accountant of her bigamy; keeping double books, ever fearful of discovery as a love embezzler."
“When Anais was most honest with herself [and one wonders if this was revealed in a conversation, or if it is the author’s imagining} she recognized there were advantages to her trapeze. For one thing, her cyclical appearances and disappearances kept her marriages fresh. Her husbands never tired of her because, unlike the usual wife, she couldn not be taken for granted. When she was gone, each man longed for her as for an absent mistress."
“For another thing, her double life tempered her restlessness. After her affair in Paris with Henry Miller, she had been infected with Henry’s lust and taste for variety, a greater threat to her marriage to Hugo than this predictable pendulum. Now she no longer picked up men at parties, no longer engaged in affairs. Her need for adventure, her appetite for wildness, was satisfied."
“Sometimes she could even see humor in her high wire act, and sometimes it gave her an almost insane high... Aloft, she was Sabina—who defied life’s cruel restrictions of one love, one spouse, one life, one self.”
There is something about the young girl meddling, involving herself in the complicated life of this mysterious older woman that itself seems fraught with danger, keeping us turning the page.
It was especially interesting to read this book in tandem with the new unexpurgated diary "Trapeze"--just released --which has Anais's own perspective of the events into which young Rainer stumbled.
Beautifully told, toggling between novelistic renditions of Nin's situation to Rainer's own life, "Apprenticed to Venus" is absolutely spellbinding, I could not put it down. And in the last chapters, certain mysteries about Nin which have always puzzled Nin lovers and scholars are resolved in an explosive way. Read to the end!!!
May 2, 2017
via my blog https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
“I knew how she was, adamant about others keeping her secrets, but careless in exposing the intimacies of others.”
That quote stayed with me the most after having read Apprenticed To Venus. Anaïs was obviously the sort of person that fished confessions, revelations, and intimacies out of people with ease. Most people are hungry for a confidant, people love to give away their juiciest parts, so long as they have an audience they think they can trust, after-all even criminals talk, stories need to be told, it’s human nature. I’ve said before, the marrow of Anaïs Nin’s writing is in her diaries. She edited them for an audience, but even if she were writing for herself alone, something is always held back for self-preservation. We can hardly be honest with ourselves, about ourselves, how can it be any different in the records we keep of our life or revelations about others? How can we expect pure honesty with each other? Anaïs as feminist truly was a persona she wore, not much different than celebrities of today. She was a great manipulator, as the famous often are, and knew how to seduce men and women alike. That Anaïs used a very young Tristine Rainier, and set her up as an accomplice in her deceptive life is wildly evident in this memoir.
Anaïs knew how to charm people and she was just as gifted at cutting them out until they begged, willing to do anything just to be let back in her ‘circle.’ Take youth and the hunger to escape one’s monotonous existence, to live in the present and taste the very essence of life so one day they may take those moments and ‘write so they can taste life twice’. Is it any wonder that Rainier was lured in by artists, musicians, and all the exciting places? There was artifice in Anaïs that anyone can see has grown to astronomical proportions in celebrities of today, but never have I read about someone who was able to live a split life with two husbands for countless years and be in the public spotlight without exposure! Reading about her spicy sexual adventures and love affairs didn’t inspire, it downright exhausted me and to think I am decades younger than she was. How do you keep up with so many lies, always a step away from disaster? Her life was complete farce, to look at your beloved (or beloveds) and live with the shame of your betrayal day in and day out? I’m not made of such stern stuff. It’s a gut rot, those lies.
The diarist is a sort of murderer, you can’t fully trust what you read about people because all stories, false and true, are told from one perspective. Often, people are caricatures- the diarist takes only certain moments and expands on them. All of us can be monstrous or angelic, depending on who is doing the writing and how they feel about us just in the that one moment. I cringe looking back at my own journals, the assassinations of character because someone hurt me, or the gushing praise for another because of tender feelings of happiness and let’s face it- how much is any sane person going to publish about themselves that reveals their own monsters? Most people don’t want to be seen as they really are when no one is looking. Anaïs knew how to sell an image, faking it half the time, but even so there are always slips and cracks. The real person bleeds through, now and then. Are we any different these days with our online personas, our ‘best foot forward’ and all that?
As mentor to Tristine Rainier, there was certainly genuine connection, in fact I think Anaïs fell in love with people until they no longer interested her or were of use. People were curiosities to her, pets that she maybe adored and then got sick of. I think about her incestuous relationship with her father, having read other memoirs about women in similar forbidden, shocking relationships one has to wonder just how damaged she was and how that affected every bond she had with others. Everything she did seemed to have a man at the core. A feminist wouldn’t need to lie, she wouldn’t need to ‘compartmentalize’ her life as Anaïs did. Would a true feminist abuse other women, through her selfishness? It’s strange, but Anaïs in many ways was like the sort of men she felt were vulgar. Her fictional stories weren’t the best but I am a staunch fan of the diaries, because the writing is expressive and beautiful- her ‘non-fiction’. Remember, even diaries are a sort of fiction, aren’t they?
It’s always interesting how people are crushed when their favorite celebrity is just like the rest of us, selfish, weak, liars when it suits their purposes, insecure… but Anaïs was also cultured, strong, supportive, loving, articulate and an artist, because in the end her life was performance art, wasn’t it? The problem is, when you create yourself to be seen in a certain light, you lose your own meaning.
Anaïs Nin’s protégé, Tristine Rainier, was seduced by Nin’s bohemian existence and is now able to reveal the secrets she held close, because although her mentor abused the confidences of her closest friends, Rainier held her own tongue proving her loyalty. This memoir is one of the best I have read about Anaïs Nin, by turns shockingly shameful and yet, fascinating. There is a struggle still between what’s acceptable sexually for a man as opposed to a woman. The world is bursting with true stories about men keeping several wives, even entire families secret, but strangely a woman being a bigamist comes off as just as distasteful to me, because at the core it is not about male/female but betrayal. Nin’s life didn’t seem free to me, chained as she was by lies, desperate enough to manipulate her young protégé and others. Is that really what we women want? To be equally vulgar? Women have a right to their sexuality as much as any man, but neither should abuse others. Human nature loves to deceive though… fame, pleasure, greed seems to be a driving force. I kept thinking, there are people who kill to keep their secrets. Isn’t that strange? That she contained her life much in the same way dangerous people do?
Publication Date: July 11, 2017
Skyhorse Publishing
Arcade Publishing
(updated review above)
I'll write my review tomorrow, but... in my opinion the marrow of Anais Nin's writing was in her diaries, anyone who keeps diaries (journals) knows they are full of both artifice and raw honesty, a lot more honesty about other people than oneself. I think for most that keep record of their emotions, there is something always held back- often for self-preservation, deep down we cannot fully remove ourselves from ourselves, nor give an honest record, not really, not completely. Nin's writing was beautiful in the diaries, but was she a 'beautiful, honest' person? Eh.... Having read quite a bit of her diaries, I was familiar with the people Rainer mentions, but there were things I didn't know... but about her incest, her devious nature, her grandiose personality... well, like many celebrities (big and small) she put on quite a show, and created a persona that outlived her.
“I knew how she was, adamant about others keeping her secrets, but careless in exposing the intimacies of others.”
That quote stayed with me the most after having read Apprenticed To Venus. Anaïs was obviously the sort of person that fished confessions, revelations, and intimacies out of people with ease. Most people are hungry for a confidant, people love to give away their juiciest parts, so long as they have an audience they think they can trust, after-all even criminals talk, stories need to be told, it’s human nature. I’ve said before, the marrow of Anaïs Nin’s writing is in her diaries. She edited them for an audience, but even if she were writing for herself alone, something is always held back for self-preservation. We can hardly be honest with ourselves, about ourselves, how can it be any different in the records we keep of our life or revelations about others? How can we expect pure honesty with each other? Anaïs as feminist truly was a persona she wore, not much different than celebrities of today. She was a great manipulator, as the famous often are, and knew how to seduce men and women alike. That Anaïs used a very young Tristine Rainier, and set her up as an accomplice in her deceptive life is wildly evident in this memoir.
Anaïs knew how to charm people and she was just as gifted at cutting them out until they begged, willing to do anything just to be let back in her ‘circle.’ Take youth and the hunger to escape one’s monotonous existence, to live in the present and taste the very essence of life so one day they may take those moments and ‘write so they can taste life twice’. Is it any wonder that Rainier was lured in by artists, musicians, and all the exciting places? There was artifice in Anaïs that anyone can see has grown to astronomical proportions in celebrities of today, but never have I read about someone who was able to live a split life with two husbands for countless years and be in the public spotlight without exposure! Reading about her spicy sexual adventures and love affairs didn’t inspire, it downright exhausted me and to think I am decades younger than she was. How do you keep up with so many lies, always a step away from disaster? Her life was complete farce, to look at your beloved (or beloveds) and live with the shame of your betrayal day in and day out? I’m not made of such stern stuff. It’s a gut rot, those lies.
The diarist is a sort of murderer, you can’t fully trust what you read about people because all stories, false and true, are told from one perspective. Often, people are caricatures- the diarist takes only certain moments and expands on them. All of us can be monstrous or angelic, depending on who is doing the writing and how they feel about us just in the that one moment. I cringe looking back at my own journals, the assassinations of character because someone hurt me, or the gushing praise for another because of tender feelings of happiness and let’s face it- how much is any sane person going to publish about themselves that reveals their own monsters? Most people don’t want to be seen as they really are when no one is looking. Anaïs knew how to sell an image, faking it half the time, but even so there are always slips and cracks. The real person bleeds through, now and then. Are we any different these days with our online personas, our ‘best foot forward’ and all that?
As mentor to Tristine Rainier, there was certainly genuine connection, in fact I think Anaïs fell in love with people until they no longer interested her or were of use. People were curiosities to her, pets that she maybe adored and then got sick of. I think about her incestuous relationship with her father, having read other memoirs about women in similar forbidden, shocking relationships one has to wonder just how damaged she was and how that affected every bond she had with others. Everything she did seemed to have a man at the core. A feminist wouldn’t need to lie, she wouldn’t need to ‘compartmentalize’ her life as Anaïs did. Would a true feminist abuse other women, through her selfishness? It’s strange, but Anaïs in many ways was like the sort of men she felt were vulgar. Her fictional stories weren’t the best but I am a staunch fan of the diaries, because the writing is expressive and beautiful- her ‘non-fiction’. Remember, even diaries are a sort of fiction, aren’t they?
It’s always interesting how people are crushed when their favorite celebrity is just like the rest of us, selfish, weak, liars when it suits their purposes, insecure… but Anaïs was also cultured, strong, supportive, loving, articulate and an artist, because in the end her life was performance art, wasn’t it? The problem is, when you create yourself to be seen in a certain light, you lose your own meaning.
Anaïs Nin’s protégé, Tristine Rainier, was seduced by Nin’s bohemian existence and is now able to reveal the secrets she held close, because although her mentor abused the confidences of her closest friends, Rainier held her own tongue proving her loyalty. This memoir is one of the best I have read about Anaïs Nin, by turns shockingly shameful and yet, fascinating. There is a struggle still between what’s acceptable sexually for a man as opposed to a woman. The world is bursting with true stories about men keeping several wives, even entire families secret, but strangely a woman being a bigamist comes off as just as distasteful to me, because at the core it is not about male/female but betrayal. Nin’s life didn’t seem free to me, chained as she was by lies, desperate enough to manipulate her young protégé and others. Is that really what we women want? To be equally vulgar? Women have a right to their sexuality as much as any man, but neither should abuse others. Human nature loves to deceive though… fame, pleasure, greed seems to be a driving force. I kept thinking, there are people who kill to keep their secrets. Isn’t that strange? That she contained her life much in the same way dangerous people do?
Publication Date: July 11, 2017
Skyhorse Publishing
Arcade Publishing
(updated review above)
I'll write my review tomorrow, but... in my opinion the marrow of Anais Nin's writing was in her diaries, anyone who keeps diaries (journals) knows they are full of both artifice and raw honesty, a lot more honesty about other people than oneself. I think for most that keep record of their emotions, there is something always held back- often for self-preservation, deep down we cannot fully remove ourselves from ourselves, nor give an honest record, not really, not completely. Nin's writing was beautiful in the diaries, but was she a 'beautiful, honest' person? Eh.... Having read quite a bit of her diaries, I was familiar with the people Rainer mentions, but there were things I didn't know... but about her incest, her devious nature, her grandiose personality... well, like many celebrities (big and small) she put on quite a show, and created a persona that outlived her.
August 28, 2017
When Tristine Rainer was just 18 in 1962 she met Anais Nin for the first time and from that moment her life was inextricably linked with the writer who cast an immediate spell over her. In her thrall from that moment she remained at her beck and call and was a constant support. This memoir of her time with and, on occasion, without Nin is interesting on many levels. It’s a literary biography, a literary and cultural history, and an intimate musing on a key relationship in Rainer’s life. I very much enjoyed the book but remained to the end totally bemused about Nin’s power over other people, both men and women, and failed to comprehend her so-called charms. She seems to me to have been the most selfish and manipulative of women, a deeply unpleasant narcissist, and I could relate neither to her nor to Rainer, who seemed so foolishly besotted. However, it’s an interesting read and I learnt a lot from it.
June 1, 2017
For those of us who came to legendry diarist Anaïs Nin’s original published journals, which she edited herself for publication in the 1960s, she appeared to be a free and independent woman. There was a brief mention of a husband in the 1930s, but nothing more. She seemed a woman who lived by her writing, printing some of her own volumes, first living in Paris, then New York, before escaping to a life in the sun of California’s hills.
In the mid-1980s and 1990s the truth began to emerge – and reading of that truth felt like a betrayal as a reader and admirer of Nin’s journals. There was Deirdre Bair’s biography, simply titled Anaïs Nin: A Biography published in 1995 and there was the succession of a publication of Nin’s unexpurgated diaries, usually centred around a theme. From the 1930s affair between Nin and writer Henry Miller, to her marriage to Hugh Guiler in the 1920s, the truth seeped out. Nin had affairs with her psychoanalyst, her father, and a host of other men, while being married to Guiler.
Bair’s biography opened further seams of the lies Nin lived. That at the age of forty-four in 1947 she met a younger man, Rupert Pole, and went west with him on a road trip, falling in love with him and then living with him. She lied to him about trying to divorce her banker husband, and from then on maintained a trapeze act of living in New York for months at a time with Guiler and then flying back to Pole. She even married Pole, while still married to Guiler, who she never, in the end, did divorce. Both men “believed” the lies – both wanted to, it seemed, despite the inconsistencies and holes in her story.
When Pole phoned Guiler’s New York apartment in the 1950s and Nin answered – what was she doing there? She still managed to convince him with another lie. Says Rainer: “She had chosen not to choose, and in so doing she had entered the land of neither and both, the land of the absurd where no ordinary laws applied. Other women dreamt of having more than one love, of combining the qualities of two men into one perfect husband. But only she had dared to live that dream.”
The reason? Rainer quotes Nin: “No. I can’t leave either man because I know how it feels to be abandoned. I couldn’t inflict that on someone I love. I’m trapped by my compassion.”
But the effect of reading these lies and the truth on a reader who started on Nin’s journals at twelve was electrifying. I felt betrayed, and lost interest in her writings. I felt let down. How many other readers did too? Especially those who had considered her a feminist, a free, independent woman, first reading the diaries in the 1960s and 1970s as the feminist movement exploded?
Tristine Rainer’s poignant, moving “novoir” a memoir with true characters and dialogue, but in the style of a novel, as she notes at the start, begins in Greenwich Village in 1962. Rainer is eighteen and introduced to Nin and Guiler for the first time. The story intertwines the life of Nin with Rainer’s experiences as a young woman, entering academia, falling into and out of love, and, of course, being swept away by Nin’s guiles. Along with Nin’s friend Renate Drucker, Rainer helped Nin maintain the fragile web of lies she had told, helping to maintain the fiction her life had become – even as ironically, she struggled to write creative fiction that wasn’t based on passages in her journal. As Rainer writes: “Anaïs was always amazed at how readily an appropriate lie would come to her in a pinch, yet when she tried to write fiction, she couldn’t make it up. All she could do was rewrite and disguise her diary entries.”
And where Rainer succeeds is lifting the veil off the artifice that has become part of the legend of Nin: what emerges is a real woman, full of charm, a coquette even in her sixties, a woman who was determined to shield her two husbands from the fact of her bigamy. A woman who emerges as a true friend to Rainer in the end – helping her get over a broken heart, and being a supportive mother figure at times. The feelings of betrayal soften while reading this: you start to understand Nin the woman. I read this book compulsively, quickly, devouring the details of Nin’s life and Rainer’s honest, yet still sympathetic portrait of a woman whose charisma charmed all around her, not just the lovers and husbands. Nin lived a remarkable life, certainly, even if it wasn’t to everyone’s taste. Rainer remarks on the magic that drew others in: “The wonder was that Anaïs, a deeply flawed person— a narcissist, a bigamist, a liar, and a deviant— was so lovable. The wonder was that from such a defective source shone so much light before her diminishment.”
It's equally satisfying reading about Rainer’s own journey. While the story lifts the veil on her friendship with Nin, it also tells the story of a young woman discovering herself through work and love her own writing, her own journals and shows how she was shaped and encouraged by Nin. Equally, the friendship is not all plain sailing – and Nin’s flaws are revealed in Rainer’s memoir. Her duplicity could extend to friendship too, and one of the strengths and highlights of the story is showing both sides of a treasured connection.
Nin’s diary writing still shines, whether you’re reading her edited versions, or the unexpurgated versions that are still being released. Published this year is Trapeze, about her double life, flying between the coasts from Pole to Guiler. But the polished versions are now tarnished by what was left out – that Nin had a husband who supported her and her numerous lovers – and that Nin both had lovers while being married and then became a bigamist by marrying Pole. A marriage between the edited and the unexpurgated diaries might be the best read, but I suspect that would be impossible to achieve.
Still, what you can take from Nin’s life and from this superb evocation of her later years, is a wonder at the magic that was Nin, a woman who tried to live as so few had tried before, and certainly not in her lifetime. It took deception, but it also took courage to live and love as she did. And this book restores my own faith in the writer I first encountered at age twelve. Read it for this reason, if you’ve ever felt betrayed by the lies that were then uncovered. But read it and prepare to be drawn in, as so many were, by the magic of Anais Nin, the woman, the writer, the charmer.
In the mid-1980s and 1990s the truth began to emerge – and reading of that truth felt like a betrayal as a reader and admirer of Nin’s journals. There was Deirdre Bair’s biography, simply titled Anaïs Nin: A Biography published in 1995 and there was the succession of a publication of Nin’s unexpurgated diaries, usually centred around a theme. From the 1930s affair between Nin and writer Henry Miller, to her marriage to Hugh Guiler in the 1920s, the truth seeped out. Nin had affairs with her psychoanalyst, her father, and a host of other men, while being married to Guiler.
Bair’s biography opened further seams of the lies Nin lived. That at the age of forty-four in 1947 she met a younger man, Rupert Pole, and went west with him on a road trip, falling in love with him and then living with him. She lied to him about trying to divorce her banker husband, and from then on maintained a trapeze act of living in New York for months at a time with Guiler and then flying back to Pole. She even married Pole, while still married to Guiler, who she never, in the end, did divorce. Both men “believed” the lies – both wanted to, it seemed, despite the inconsistencies and holes in her story.
When Pole phoned Guiler’s New York apartment in the 1950s and Nin answered – what was she doing there? She still managed to convince him with another lie. Says Rainer: “She had chosen not to choose, and in so doing she had entered the land of neither and both, the land of the absurd where no ordinary laws applied. Other women dreamt of having more than one love, of combining the qualities of two men into one perfect husband. But only she had dared to live that dream.”
The reason? Rainer quotes Nin: “No. I can’t leave either man because I know how it feels to be abandoned. I couldn’t inflict that on someone I love. I’m trapped by my compassion.”
But the effect of reading these lies and the truth on a reader who started on Nin’s journals at twelve was electrifying. I felt betrayed, and lost interest in her writings. I felt let down. How many other readers did too? Especially those who had considered her a feminist, a free, independent woman, first reading the diaries in the 1960s and 1970s as the feminist movement exploded?
Tristine Rainer’s poignant, moving “novoir” a memoir with true characters and dialogue, but in the style of a novel, as she notes at the start, begins in Greenwich Village in 1962. Rainer is eighteen and introduced to Nin and Guiler for the first time. The story intertwines the life of Nin with Rainer’s experiences as a young woman, entering academia, falling into and out of love, and, of course, being swept away by Nin’s guiles. Along with Nin’s friend Renate Drucker, Rainer helped Nin maintain the fragile web of lies she had told, helping to maintain the fiction her life had become – even as ironically, she struggled to write creative fiction that wasn’t based on passages in her journal. As Rainer writes: “Anaïs was always amazed at how readily an appropriate lie would come to her in a pinch, yet when she tried to write fiction, she couldn’t make it up. All she could do was rewrite and disguise her diary entries.”
And where Rainer succeeds is lifting the veil off the artifice that has become part of the legend of Nin: what emerges is a real woman, full of charm, a coquette even in her sixties, a woman who was determined to shield her two husbands from the fact of her bigamy. A woman who emerges as a true friend to Rainer in the end – helping her get over a broken heart, and being a supportive mother figure at times. The feelings of betrayal soften while reading this: you start to understand Nin the woman. I read this book compulsively, quickly, devouring the details of Nin’s life and Rainer’s honest, yet still sympathetic portrait of a woman whose charisma charmed all around her, not just the lovers and husbands. Nin lived a remarkable life, certainly, even if it wasn’t to everyone’s taste. Rainer remarks on the magic that drew others in: “The wonder was that Anaïs, a deeply flawed person— a narcissist, a bigamist, a liar, and a deviant— was so lovable. The wonder was that from such a defective source shone so much light before her diminishment.”
It's equally satisfying reading about Rainer’s own journey. While the story lifts the veil on her friendship with Nin, it also tells the story of a young woman discovering herself through work and love her own writing, her own journals and shows how she was shaped and encouraged by Nin. Equally, the friendship is not all plain sailing – and Nin’s flaws are revealed in Rainer’s memoir. Her duplicity could extend to friendship too, and one of the strengths and highlights of the story is showing both sides of a treasured connection.
Nin’s diary writing still shines, whether you’re reading her edited versions, or the unexpurgated versions that are still being released. Published this year is Trapeze, about her double life, flying between the coasts from Pole to Guiler. But the polished versions are now tarnished by what was left out – that Nin had a husband who supported her and her numerous lovers – and that Nin both had lovers while being married and then became a bigamist by marrying Pole. A marriage between the edited and the unexpurgated diaries might be the best read, but I suspect that would be impossible to achieve.
Still, what you can take from Nin’s life and from this superb evocation of her later years, is a wonder at the magic that was Nin, a woman who tried to live as so few had tried before, and certainly not in her lifetime. It took deception, but it also took courage to live and love as she did. And this book restores my own faith in the writer I first encountered at age twelve. Read it for this reason, if you’ve ever felt betrayed by the lies that were then uncovered. But read it and prepare to be drawn in, as so many were, by the magic of Anais Nin, the woman, the writer, the charmer.
July 22, 2017
https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/163284...
…In fact, for me, having come of age in the 1950’s, a man taking you while you were helpless was a secret fantasy. One where I could have pleasure without guilt, as when I imagined myself being bound to a factory conveyor belt and carried on it to a man like nougat centers to the chocolate dip—moving toward desire free of volition.
Tristine Rainer, an academic professor in her later years, now confesses her rapturous secret life at once riveting and hinged on a sensuality deemed as generally too dangerous. But Rainer today must not care what most of us think and perhaps she feels strongly about the importance of her subject. In the early sixties Anaïs Nin had become her mentor as Rainer signed on as confidant. The story of their relationship reveals in greater detail what Nin has previously confessed to in her diaries. This is the backstory, and it offers a deeper glimpse, or even perhaps a more honest gaze, into what impelled Nin to behave in ways that are still, in some holy circles, unacceptable today. The sexually liberated woman is still at risk for condemnation. Anaïs Nin was either a precursor to the women’s movement, or perhaps, in degrees, a founding mother of it. Having to wait thirty years to publish this revealing memoir due to Nin’s second husband remaining alive, this confession proves to be graciously insightful as well as an interesting read.
…In fact, for me, having come of age in the 1950’s, a man taking you while you were helpless was a secret fantasy. One where I could have pleasure without guilt, as when I imagined myself being bound to a factory conveyor belt and carried on it to a man like nougat centers to the chocolate dip—moving toward desire free of volition.
Tristine Rainer, an academic professor in her later years, now confesses her rapturous secret life at once riveting and hinged on a sensuality deemed as generally too dangerous. But Rainer today must not care what most of us think and perhaps she feels strongly about the importance of her subject. In the early sixties Anaïs Nin had become her mentor as Rainer signed on as confidant. The story of their relationship reveals in greater detail what Nin has previously confessed to in her diaries. This is the backstory, and it offers a deeper glimpse, or even perhaps a more honest gaze, into what impelled Nin to behave in ways that are still, in some holy circles, unacceptable today. The sexually liberated woman is still at risk for condemnation. Anaïs Nin was either a precursor to the women’s movement, or perhaps, in degrees, a founding mother of it. Having to wait thirty years to publish this revealing memoir due to Nin’s second husband remaining alive, this confession proves to be graciously insightful as well as an interesting read.
March 6, 2017
I count myself extraordinarily lucky to receive an ARC of this thought-provoking memoir. Anais Nin was one of my earliest influences as a writer and as a young woman. I read everything by her that I could in my early adulthood, and of course, I read her famous diaries. I thought I knew something of Anais, that I had gleaned some sort of special understanding of her through her writing, and all of that was turned upside down reading Tristine Rainer's account of her time knowing her firsthand.
A quick Wikipedia lookup would have informed me that Anais had two husbands, but there is very little there to explain how she managed to juggle those two relationships. Helping Anais keep the story straight was one of the early tasks that Tristine had as a young protege. She tells the story with a careful look to the past and part of what makes this memoir so touching is that she tackles the thorny parts of the relationship with love and understanding that could only be born of wisdom of that only comes with age.
I could not put the book down and when I finally did, I was wrecked. I felt a sorrow at the loss of Anais to the world, the sorrow Anais had of leaving her strange and wonderful life and Tristine's loss of her friend.
This story is so well-told, so poignant and moving and is an incredible tribute to one of the best woman writers and diarists of the 20th century.
A quick Wikipedia lookup would have informed me that Anais had two husbands, but there is very little there to explain how she managed to juggle those two relationships. Helping Anais keep the story straight was one of the early tasks that Tristine had as a young protege. She tells the story with a careful look to the past and part of what makes this memoir so touching is that she tackles the thorny parts of the relationship with love and understanding that could only be born of wisdom of that only comes with age.
I could not put the book down and when I finally did, I was wrecked. I felt a sorrow at the loss of Anais to the world, the sorrow Anais had of leaving her strange and wonderful life and Tristine's loss of her friend.
This story is so well-told, so poignant and moving and is an incredible tribute to one of the best woman writers and diarists of the 20th century.
January 28, 2018
While the writing style was surprisingly disjointed and artificial-feeling for someone who specializes in diaries, the salacious and fascinating details of Anais Nin and her post-Paris set were enough to keep me going through to the end. I kind of wish Rainer had left things in a present-tense diary format rather than trying to make it a "novoir." Dealing with the naivete of her 19-year-old (and up) self trying to figure out what was going on was more annoying than endearing, but her heartfelt and intimate portrayal of a complex literary figure is worth the read if you are a fan.
August 7, 2017
I love Anais Nin, the author was an "apprentice" to Anais in the late '60s. She unmasks Anais as a bigamist and narcissist. I guess when you're that close to an artist you see all their foibles. I'll take my artists from afar.
May 1, 2017
This book is SO interesting!!! Very fluid, very easy to follow the history. I love the timelines and locations at the start of each chapter. I can see the characters clearly. Her descriptions and stories of them are all fantastic. I could see this book being a wonderful movie. I don't want it to end.
Many times I cringe at some of the things Anais tells Tristine and Renate. I felt a desire to want to shake them and wake them up! Afraid that they will be swept deeper into Anais web of lies. However, as the story continues, I appreciated the love and loyalty these three had for each other. Excellent read!
Many times I cringe at some of the things Anais tells Tristine and Renate. I felt a desire to want to shake them and wake them up! Afraid that they will be swept deeper into Anais web of lies. However, as the story continues, I appreciated the love and loyalty these three had for each other. Excellent read!
May 24, 2018
This memoir is strictly for readers familiar with (or more likely aficionados of) the multi-volume DIARIES (aka JOURNALS) OF ANÄIS NIN. I read the original series - not the "early" journals published long after Nin's death in 1977 - and really enjoyed this reminiscence that mimics the NIN style intermittently.
Rainer was a young student whose chance encounter led to a friendship that included "covering" for and aiding in the decades long bigamous relationships that Nin maintained. She literally had her first husband in New York, and a much younger and virile husband in California. It really was a farce.
As Nin restructured and rewrote her journals to protect others as she nurtured her personal mythology, I believe the reader is expected to pass a similar bemused eye over Rainer's recollections. Fiction, fact and memory make an inconsistent broth of veracity.
Perhaps this book can be enjoyed without familiarity with Nin, but I recommend Nin's many languid and entertaining diaries - a grande bouffe of self-absorption AND 20th century literary history - then nibble on this after dinner mint.
Rainer was a young student whose chance encounter led to a friendship that included "covering" for and aiding in the decades long bigamous relationships that Nin maintained. She literally had her first husband in New York, and a much younger and virile husband in California. It really was a farce.
As Nin restructured and rewrote her journals to protect others as she nurtured her personal mythology, I believe the reader is expected to pass a similar bemused eye over Rainer's recollections. Fiction, fact and memory make an inconsistent broth of veracity.
Perhaps this book can be enjoyed without familiarity with Nin, but I recommend Nin's many languid and entertaining diaries - a grande bouffe of self-absorption AND 20th century literary history - then nibble on this after dinner mint.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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July 6, 2023AT FORTY-FOUR, SHE WAS MAD for sex and wild with anxiety. For a time, she was having sex with Gonzolo [sic] in the village studio she kept for him, and with Henry Miller, who had also followed her to New York, and with half dozen other men, sometimes five different men in a day - younger ones, older ones, soldiers and film directors, men she met at parties, some straight, some not. She paused only when bedridden with bouts of exhaustion.
"I always knew I only had a part of you. You were a creature of flight and had to fulfill your nature."
"I knew that to hold onto you, I had to let you go, or I would lose you completely."
When I think about Anaïs and Hugo and Rupert, I don't see how it could have been any other way. Both men kept themselves from knowing about Anaïs's double life because they wanted to be with her. They both realized that having half of Anaïs Nin was better than all of any other woman.
I was doing what I always did, interpreting my experience through some literary reference instead of knowing it directly.
"I always knew I only had a part of you. You were a creature of flight and had to fulfill your nature."
"I knew that to hold onto you, I had to let you go, or I would lose you completely."
When I think about Anaïs and Hugo and Rupert, I don't see how it could have been any other way. Both men kept themselves from knowing about Anaïs's double life because they wanted to be with her. They both realized that having half of Anaïs Nin was better than all of any other woman.
I was doing what I always did, interpreting my experience through some literary reference instead of knowing it directly.
February 27, 2019
I can’t understand who this book is for. Nin’s bigamy is treated as a mystery/big reveal. I understand that it was for the author, but it’s frustrating to spend 100+ pages with the author *not getting it*, when anyone who cares about Anaïs Nin already knows she had two husbands. The author seems to think the reader is also mystified as to why Nin tells weird lies and travels a lot... but it’s like Nin 101: diaries; Henry Miller; lots of lovers, including two husbands, one of whom was the stepson of a famous architect. (A real famous architect, not an Ayn Rand character.) The author’s close relationship with Nin makes her a valuable resource. I just wish she’d written from her current vantage, and not spent most of the book inside the naïve vantage, which made me impatient.
July 24, 2017
An Amazing memoir/biography of the fascinating writer and feminist Anais Nin and the chance encounter the author had with her that changed the course of her life. Rainer had the supreme privilege of being in Nin's confidence for much of her life. Anais Nin has always been a woman of contradictions and more modern for the time she lived. Reading Rainer's secret life with Nin, I felt like I myself has a prime seat in the window of her inner circle. This is a wholly original work on two extraordinary women, their lives, loves, passions and secrets. Like a fine wine and a delicious meal it is a feast for the mind, heart and the senses. Loved it!
October 27, 2017
This was an interesting read. The author captured the mystique that has always surrounded Anaïs Nin spectacularly. Ms. Rainer's writing style made the story flow and even though the book flips back and forth through different time periods, the reader never loses the thread. If you want to find out about Ms. Nin's real personality and the motivations for her behavior, this is the book to read. It depicts her in a very human and reverential light.
March 16, 2018
Oh I wanted to love this book... but I really struggled through it. Learning more about Anais is what kept me going, until it started to feel like a tell all. I was also distracted by the author’s need to constantly prove the importance of her relationship with Anais. Oh I wanted to love this book.
May 31, 2020
Most memoirs pull aside a curtain but leave the sheers intact, leaving readers to speculate on what really went on in the filmy background. Rainer leaves the window bare and invites the reader into the steamy life of Anaïs Nin and her own experience of being mentored by a woman who dared flout conventions.
August 5, 2017
A must read for any Anais Nin scholar and/or fan. I discovered Nin only 6 years ago, but have been entranced ever since. Just as I discovered her diaries and writings at that time in my life, this book found me at just the right time. Brava Tristine! Thank you for sharing this part of your story.
September 1, 2017
Via my blog: https://logophilesville.wordpress.com...
I did struggle with this book as it made me question so much in friendship. My thought are well outlined in my blog.
I did struggle with this book as it made me question so much in friendship. My thought are well outlined in my blog.
November 27, 2017
I felt uncomfortable reading this. Rainer seemed more of a hanger on vampire than an actual apprentice to Nin. Nin trusted her with secrets and Rainer divulged them. Rainire comes across as very unlikeable.
September 12, 2018
Wow. This memoir shows a side of Anais Nin unfamiliar to the public. She uses every means at her disposal to manipulate the author into doing her dirty work. All at once an unforgettable memoir as well as pseudo-biography, this book does not disappoint.
June 4, 2019
Enjoyed this because I find Anais Nin interesting, but I don’t know how it would come across for anyone who doesn’t already know about her life. I wish there had been a picture or two of her with Tristine Rainer...are there even any?
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November 5, 2021read this in 24 hours. I feel that this is the kind of book that you must seek out on your own.. in the sense that I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but I loved the story. It rips some of the masks off of the elusive Anais and elucidates her “human-ness”
August 14, 2017
Found it very childish and self-centered and gave up on it.
October 20, 2017
An interesting biography of a flawed woman who was ahead of her time.
September 25, 2018
A love story of the most tenderest kind.
May 10, 2020
An incredibly well-written memoir.
May 29, 2023
surprisingly lacklustre for someone who specializes in diaries
May 29, 2024
i loved reading about this complex female friendship
Want to read
October 13, 2025XXXXXX cannot import to goodreads
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews