Writing an Icon
Writing an Icon
Celebrity Culture and the Invention of Anaïs Nin
Anita Jarczok
SWALLOW PRESS
ATHENS, OHIO
Swallow Press
An imprint of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jarczok, Anita, author.
Title: Writing an icon : celebrity culture and the invention of Anaïs Nin / Anita Jarczok.
Description: Athens, Ohio : Swallow Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016051564 | ISBN 9780804011754 (hardback) | ISBN 9780804011761 (pb) | ISBN 9780804040754 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Nin, Anaïs, 1903–1977. | Authors, American—20th century—Biography. | Literature and society—United States—History—20th century. | Celebrities—United States—20th century. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women’s Studies. | LITERARY CRITICISM / Women Authors.
Classification: LCC PS3527.I865 Z726 2017 | DDC 818/.5209 [B] —dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016051564
Parts of chapter 3 originally appeared in “Anaïs Nin, Feminism and Celebrity Authorship—Negotiating Image and Identity in the Interviews,” in Stardom: Discussions of Fame and Celebrity Culture, ed. Katarzyna Bronk (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2012), 13–21, and “Anaïs Nin, Feminism and Celebrity Authorship—Negotiating Image and Identity in the Interviews,” in Search for the Real: Authenticity and the Construction of Celebrity, ed. Andrew Sepie (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2014), 83–98.
Parts of chapters 3 and 4 appeared in earlier form in “Eroticizing Nin, Eroticizing Women: Philip Kaufman’s Henry & June,” A Café in Space: The Anaïs Nin Literary Journal 8 (2011): 57–77 and “Anaïs Nin and the Business of Reviewing and Management of Her Public Persona, 1966–1977,” A Café in Space: The Anaïs Nin Literary Journal 9 (2012): 82–101.
Contents
INTRODUCTION. Anaïs Nin and Her Diary
ONE. Literary Celebrity, the Modernist Marketplace, and Marketing the Diary
TWO. Public Promotion of the Private Self: Anaïs Nin’s Self-Constructions in the Diary
THREE. Public Relations of the Self: Anaïs Nin, Feminism, and Celebrity Authorship
FOUR. Success, Scandal, Sex, and the Search for the “Real” Anaïs Nin
CONCLUSION. Anaïs Nin in the Twenty-First Century
Acknowledgments
First, I wish to acknowledge and thank Dr. Sinead McDermott and Dr. Patricia Moran for reading the earliest manuscript version of this book and for all their advice and guidance. My research was made possible by a Women’s Studies scholarship from the University of Limerick and funding from the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences. Without this financial assistance, I would not have been able to complete my studies. I also would like to thank all the people who directly or indirectly contributed to the writing of this book: Dr. Carmen Kuhling, Professor Brenda Silver, and the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for their invaluable suggestions and critique; Paul Herron for providing materials on Anaïs Nin; the librarians at the Anaïs Nin Collection at the University of California, Los Angeles, for their helpful assistance with my archival research; Anna Jaskier for devoting her time to double-checking the accuracy of the quotations; Angela Przelomski for her comments on the introduction; and Gillian Berchowitz, Nancy Basmajian, and Ricky Huard along with all the other staff of the Ohio University Press for their encouragement and help throughout the writing and publishing process. I am grateful to Tree Wright for letting me use excerpts from Nin’s original journals and letters. Finally, I am indebted to my family and friends, especially those who provided their constant support regardless of the many kilometers separating us. Special thanks to my parents my brother, and to my friends Aleksandra and Darragh Browne, Lisa Breford, Anna Jaskier, Julien Lynagh, and Katarzyna Papkoj.
Introduction
Anaïs Nin and Her Diary
A few weeks after Madonna published Sex—a provocative book containing highly erotic, verging on pornographic, imagery and language—a short article entitled “Pages: No Monopoly for Madonna” appeared in the Los Angeles Times. “Harcourt Brace Jovanovich would like to remind the world that Madonna does not hold the patent on sexual confessions,” it announced in the opening sentence. The article further suggested that it was not Madonna but Anaïs Nin, a long-dead diarist and author of erotic stories, who paved the way for sexually explicit revelations. An occasion to mention Nin’s name arose because Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, a major
