Henry Miller is Under My Bed

by Mary Duncan

In this evocative memoir, this granddaughter of a bootlegger tells the story of how she went out and got a life. Her father was a bus driver who died when she was four; her mother worked in a bar to support the kids. She did well in school and married a Protestant minister. From the parsonage, she went to the Playboy Mansion, where for many years she had a personal relationship with 60's guru Max Lerner. Through Max and others, she developed a friendship with DNA scientist, Francis Crick; a fascination for Henry Miller, Simone de Beauvoir and pioneers of the sexual revolution. A United Nations Conference took her to the Soviet Union, where she married a second time and founded Moscow Shakespeare and Company Bookstore. As a college professor. her research on playgrounds in troubled countries took her to Belfast, Tehran and Managua. Mary lives between California and Paris, where she created the Paris Writers Group. She is actively involved with the literary community and is writing a new book about love, literature and death on a Paris street.

192 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2008

About the author

Mary Duncan is a native Californian and has lived in Paris since 2000. She is the founder and director of the Paris Writers Group, a contributor to the Huffington Post, the author of Henry Miller is Under My Bed, owns an archive of original Henry Miller materials and is on the Advisory Board of the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur. She is currently writing a book about a street in Paris where several French literary figures lived and worked.

In her ‘life before Paris’, she was a professor at San Diego State University, an expert on terrorism and the the Irish Republican Army, and the author of numerous articles. She was frequently interviewed on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Moscow television and radio and was the co-chair of the Soviet-American Committee on Causes and Prevention of Terrorism. She has lectured at Oxford University and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. Her research took her to Nicaragua, Belfast, Cuba, Mexico, India, France and Tehran.

Reviews

[Lizzie Harwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A whirlwind memoir about the life of an extraordinary person - Ms. Duncan's travels and actions captivate, amuse and shock - sometimes all at once.

If it wasn't a memoir, you'd have to say it was all made up - but so often life IS stranger than fiction. In these pages, you get to know a funny, smart, dedicated woman and her story left me questioning my own contribution to the world. There is a lot about Henry Miller in here but much more about politics, world events, finding one's path, and living life to the fullest.

Impossible to be bored for one minute reading this - which is great because the author shuns boredom!

[Debra Finerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book by Mary Duncan! Highly recommended!