Synopsis
Anais Nin visits the Grand Guignol in Paris. Her fascination with the star actress at the theater leads her to discover that the owner of the theater is not what you would suspect. He is sucking the vitality and life out of many young women.
History
First publication: Lethe Press, October 1, 2019
Review
This story is fiction, but is written as if it is one of the missing unexpurgated portions of Anais Nin’s diaries. So from this basis in the history of literature, the story develops into a fantastic and gruesome horror story where women are being possessed by a demon. The writing could have been “fuller” by which I mean that the style was kind of direct and simple, while most stories of this sort from before the 1970s would have a more ornamented writing style sort of like Edgar Allan Poe. That style does lend gothic horror a deeper creepiness, while a simpler, more modern style will be somehow less horrifying. But I don’t think the point of the story is really to achieve an extreme creepiness, despite some of the description. I think it was aiming at something more accessible. The story succeeds and is enjoyable, though it doesn’t make it to a Top Tale. The surreal passages really make me love this book.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
Anais Nin at the Grand Guignol, trade paperback, Lethe Press, 2019-10-01
