Trapeze
by Anaïs Nin
The double life, documented: eight years swinging between a husband in New York and a lover in California, from the journal that kept both books.
- 2017
About Anaïs Nin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeThe sixth unexpurgated volume names the era the way Nin herself did: the trapeze. From 1947 to 1955 she swung between two lives — Hugh Guiler and the marriage in New York, Rupert Pole and the house in California — on a schedule of invented film jobs, forwarded mail, and a lie so architecturally elaborate it required what she called the 'lie box' to administer. The published fifth Diary could only render these years as geography; this 2017 volume supplies the machinery, the cost, and the strange devotion on both ends of the wire. (A diary — the closing pages wait behind the reveal.)
The story, in more detail
No stretch of the diary was more thoroughly falsified in her lifetime's published version, because none was less printable: a double life conducted for years across a continent, each man believing (mostly) that the absences were professional. The journal records the logistics with the fascination of an engineer — the cover stories, the carbon-copied letters, the card file of which lie went where — and the interior weather of a woman who could not choose and therefore built a life out of not choosing.
The volume also carries the era's quieter freight: the lean publishing years and the self-printing of the mid-fifties, her mother's death in 1954 with the uncut grief the published fifth volume abridged, and — in 1955 — the Quintanilla ceremony in Arizona that made the double life bigamous in fact as well as in structure, a legal knot not undone for years. Edited by Paul Herron for Sky Blue Press, it is the series' most astonishing volume as pure narrative: the trapeze, in the performer's own log.
The full story
1947–1955, uncut: the establishment of the two households — East with Guiler, West with Pole; the transportation, postal, and narrative systems that kept them separate; Mexico and the Acapulco discoveries threaded between coasts; the fiction's lean years and her mother's death; and the diary functioning as the one room where both lives could be true at once — the trapeze artist's own account of the swing, bar to bar, year after year.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
The volume closes on the era's sharpest escalation: in 1955 Nin marries Rupert Pole in Arizona while still married to Hugh Guiler — the double life becoming double marriage, with the diary recording both the ceremony and the immediate, permanent complication of it. The swing does not stop; the next volume, The Diary of Others, inherits two households, two rings, and the long project of bringing the diary itself to print.
Themes and analysis
The painted window
After the intensity of the first night, the March entry settles into brief domestic actions: talking, making sandwiches, sleeping and preparing breakfast. Rupert's wonder at the painted window makes the familiar room newly visible, while the snow and white kimono give the morning a stillness unlike the preceding movement. Yet this apparent arrival is immediately unsettled by Nin's question about whether the happiness can last. The passage lets ordinary companionship promise continuity without securing it; the ease of the morning remains vulnerable to the narrator's expectation of loss.
A tree beside the East River
At the East River, Nin's attention passes from the birch's chestnut-like bark to the many symbolic meanings she tries to give it. Rupert's interest centers on protecting and sustaining the tree. The scene places her multiplying interpretations beside his wish to care for a living thing, then carries that attentiveness into his concern about her cold hands. It does not simply resolve her uncertainty: she continues counting kisses and words for reassurance. The tree briefly directs attention outward, even as the diary records the return of anxious self-questioning.
Why we recommend it
The machinery of a double life
Cover stories, mail routes, the lie box — deception documented with an archivist's precision, by its author.
Both loves, in full
Neither man is a caricature; the journal's fairness to both households is the volume's moral surprise.
The era's best-kept secret
The bigamy that stayed hidden through decades of fame, from the primary record.
What this book explores
Timeline
1947–1950
The two households take shape: Guiler in New York, Pole in California, the swing between them systematized.
1954
Rosa Culmell dies; the uncut grief the published fifth volume abridged is restored here.
1955
The Arizona marriage to Pole closes the volume — the double life becomes double marriage.
2017
Sky Blue Press publishes the volume, edited by Paul Herron.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Sky Blue Press / Swallow Press
- 2017
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1947–1955
The same years as edited in her lifetime — geography without the machinery.
Read our takeTrapeze: frequently asked questions
What years does Trapeze cover?
1947 to 1955 — the establishment of Nin's double life between Hugh Guiler in New York and Rupert Pole in California, ending with her second, bigamous marriage in Arizona.
When was it published?
2017, by Sky Blue Press with Swallow Press, edited by Paul Herron — the sixth volume of the unexpurgated diary.
What does the title mean?
It was Nin's own name for the era: the trapeze, swinging between two lives on a fixed schedule, never letting go of either bar.
Was Nin really married to two men at once?
Yes. She married Rupert Pole in Arizona in 1955 while still married to Hugh Guiler — the volume records the ceremony and its complications. The Pole marriage was later annulled for legal reasons, though the relationship lasted the rest of her life.
Did either man know?
Not fully, for many years. The journal documents the elaborate systems — cover stories, mail forwarding, the card-file 'lie box' — that kept the two households apart.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Trapeze, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Trapeze
NovelAnaïs Nin, 2017Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2Anaïs Nin — biography
WebsiteThe Anaïs Nin FoundationUsed forUsed to verify Trapeze's bibliographic context and its place within Anaïs Nin's published work.
3Anaïs Nin Papers — diary, March–September 1938
ArchiveUCLA Library Special CollectionsUsed forUsed for independent archival, institutional, or historical context surrounding Anaïs Nin and Trapeze.
4Anaïs Nin: A Biography
BiographyG. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995Used forUsed to cross-check chronology, publication history, and the circumstances in which Trapeze appeared.
5Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin
BiographyLittle, Brown, 1993Used forUsed for an additional scholarly or biographical perspective on Trapeze and Anaïs Nin's wider career.
6Trapeze — opening diary preview
WebsiteSky Blue Press / Everand, 2017Used forUses the March 1947 breakfast and April 1947 East River passages in the public Sky Blue Press preview. Front matter and surrounding entries were read; no complete-volume, later ceremony or original-notebook collation is claimed.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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