Staff Pick
Historical, thought-provoking, hypnotic, and erotic. The diaries of Anaïs Nin are endlessly entertaining and interesting, and make excellent company for quiet baths. Recommended By Connor M., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Eavesdrop on one of the most celebrated literary friendships in American letters
"An epistolary feast for literary fans [and] a confidence booster for aspiring writers everywhere. A-" —Entertainment Weekly
"If friendship is an art, this volume is its masterpiece." —Lee Smith
"A remarkable testimony to friendship, literature, and an abiding love of life." —Richmond Times-Dispatch
What There Is to Say We Have Said bears witness to Welty and Maxwells more than fifty years of friendship and their lives as writers and readers. It serves as a chronicle of their literary world, their talk of Katherine Anne Porter, Salinger, Dinesen, Updike, Percy, Cheever, and more. Through more than three hundred letters, Marrs brings us the story of a true, deep friendship and an homage to the forgotten art of letter writing.
"A vivid picture of twentieth-century intellectual life and a record of a remarkable friendship... Glorious." —Houston Chronicle
"Full of great tidbits about The New Yorker back in the day ... Charming." —The New Yorker
"These letters evoke a lost world when events moved a bit more slowly, and friends could take the time to be both eloquently witty and generous with each other, and letters were unobtrusively artful about daily life. Welty and Maxwell are like two birds of the same species, calling to each other across the distances." —Charles Baxter
Review
"As unique a literary memoir as has been published...lyrical, and singularly potent." Village Voice
Review
"One of the most remarkable diaries in the history of letters....With this initial publication, Miss Nin, already assured of a place in contemporary literature, makes this doubly secure." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Sensitive and frank...a unique blend of the poetic and the precise. She charts the human chemistry of her relationships, noting changes, catalysts, fissions....Her diary is a dialogue between flesh and spirit." Newsweek
Review
"A joy for its pellucid writing, its descriptions of people and places and its objective self-analysis." Sunday Times
About the Author
Anais Nin (1903-1977) was born in Paris and aspired at an early age to be a writer. An influential artist and thinker, she was the author of several novels, short stories, critical studies, a collection of essays, two volumes of erotica, and nine published volumes of her diary.