Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus

This selection of letters written by Miller, then in his eighties, to his neighbor, a young dancer/actress named Brenda Venus, is interwoven with a text by Venus recounting the course of their relationship

Bedridden and in his late 80s, Miller wrote more than 1500 letters to a young actress-dancer who was the last great love of his life. The letters here selected, interspersed with commentary by Venus and each virtually complete, are remarkable for their clarity, cheerfulness and passiona passion often expressed with Milleresque uninhibitednessand interesting for their views on writers, painters, sex and spirituality (the last two considered by Miller to be inseparable). As the final blaze-up of a powerful romantic spirit, the letters make a touching love story; and as Durrell points out in his crisp preface, we should be grateful to Venus for the tact and generosity that allowed Miller to spend his last days in a "marvelous euphoria of loving attachment." 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo. January 22
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In his eighties (from 1976 to 1980), Miller almost daily wrote love letters to actress Brenda Venusmissives overflowing with memories and hopes, crackling with erudition, exploding with explicit sex. As friend Lawrence Durrell prefaces: "He does not exaggerate when he says she is literally keeping him alive; indeed her generosity and tact allowed him to end his days in a marvelous euphoria of loving attachment." Miller's intelligence, sensuality, humanity, and love reverberate throughout this correspondence, in spite of his then being critically ill and almost blind. These letters, written while he was dying, exhibit his remarkable creative capacities that for too long went unrecognized. Glenn O. Carey, English Dept., Eastern Kentucky Univ., Richmond
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.