Posted ByPierre on August 17, 19101 at 21:17:00:
Hi Gregory!
You could try "Colossus of One" by Kenneth C. Dick. (Alibris.com has four copies...). This awesome book was published in the Netherlands, in 1967 (Alberts-Sittard, publ.). Its unique blend of interviewing, criticism, interpretation and often surreal confession should give any Henry Miller fan a wild diversion. Where else can you hear June Mansfield talk (live!) about her relationship with Henry?!... There's even an interview with Wambly Bald, the flamboyant Van Norden of "Tropic of Cancer". Needless to say, Henry was not too fond of this book: "Purportedly an interview, in which he (Dick)compares what I wrote with what she (June) says. Scurrilous and full of lies. (She even beat Anaïs at it." p.506:"The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80". In spite of its faults, "Colossus of One" is still quite an entertaining work. I strongly recommend it, if you want a "second opinion". But is this really necessary?
Finding "independent corroboration of Miller's anecdotes" will always be a fastidious task. Henry's biographers usually follow his life through his so-called autobiographical novels (the "Tropics" and "Crucifixion"). Mary V. Dearborn ("The Happiest Man Alive") and Robert Ferguson ("Henry Miller, A Life") can sometimes be useful in explaining how Henry re-invented things. That Miller exaggerated, falsified or dissimulated certain events of his life is quite normal. It's common practice among writers to re-create and nobody would expect Marcel Proust (one of Miller's idols), for example, to say "the whole truth and nothing but the truth"... Proust and Miller both changed names, dates, chronology, etc.; they were never afraid to transform or amalgamate. Of course, such a process annoyed many people. In Miller's case, June was one of the first to protest: Mona was not her; Henry always got everything wrong; he was a liar, etc. So what? Good writers are such good liars!
Pierre