Inspiration: Anaïs Nin
Guiller & Nin in the 30's
Born in France, raised in Cuba and spent her formative years in Paris and New York City. Anaïs was curious child and an adventurous young lady. She was married to her first husband by the age of 20 (Hugh Guiller) and would marry a second time to Rupert Pole in her 50’s, while still married to her first husband. She remained to both men and lived to lives or she puts it, her bicoastal marriages. Guile remained in NYC while Pole remained on the west coast in California. Nin would eventually have her marriage annulled with Pole because the two kept trying to claim her on their taxes.
At a young age Nin was introduced to the world erotica literature. Nin embrassed it early on and adapted it to her life and lifestyle. She began exploring sexuality in her late teens but fell in to a marriage at the early age of 20. While married twice over for a large portion of her life, she did not have a single monogamist bone in her body. Nin took on many lovers through out her life. Most notably, Henry Miller and rumored his wife June, Otto Rank (her therapist), Gore Vidal and father. Yes, I said her father. In her teens her parents were separated and she, along with her siblings lived with her mother. Their father became estranged from the whole family for almost 20 years. In her 30’s, while under the guidance of her therapist Otto Rank, her father reentered her life. Her father also had a ferocious appetite for sex.
Anaïs was extremely scared by the absence of her father and Otto Rank suggested she might want to sleep with her father and lead him on, only to dump him and hurt him as much as he hurt her. Nin wrote about this “experience” in her novel House of Incest as well as in her journals. Some historians believe the truth of the story may be she never bedded her father but she might have attempted. Nin was in Paris in the late 1920’s and off and on during the 1930’s. She had befriended many great figures during this period like Antonin Artaud. Nin’s writing blossomed from the mid-30’s till the 50’s with such titles as House of Incest, Winter Artifice and Under the Glass Bell.