Incest, the second diary in Nin's "unexpurgated" journal works, is both elegant and disturbing. It is horribly fascinating because it is a "poetic" look at psychic pain. Nin, the reader soon deciphers, was probably a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. While her prose was among the best I had ever read, her attempts to romanticize her sexual relationship with her father did not work with me! She hated men: her father, her husband, her brothers, her therapist, and her countless lovers. She enjoyed hurting them. What does a sick person do to a good husband like Hugo? She abuses him; mistreats and makes a thorough fool of him. After an abortion, does a deranged diarist opt to heal without viewing the aborted fetus? Not at all! She holds the fetus in her arms and babbles about "mothering" Henry Miller! This powerful, but horrific work would be a fascinating case study for any psychologist! Her "passionate" and "white hot" sexual affairs were simply provocative blows of rage against a father who abused her. She was a fantastic artist and a manipulative and ambitious charmer who was able to channel her incredible pain into her work. Even though I am a lover of many of her writings(Henry and June was my favorite!), I will always believe she would have contributed so much more to literature in general if she had received the psychological help she so desperately needed.