In progress – looking for a publisher
Before punk, before the Beats, before existentialism, and beyond Surrealism there were two visionaries, two rebels, two friends…and two tragic heroes,
Antonin Artaud and Robert Desnos.
These two men should never be forgotten.
Please visit the Association Rodez Antonin Artaud for more information about Artaud’s life and work
From Book 2: The Sex Discussions, Part Two
This section is presented in its entirety. “I don’t know where my story begins,” I said. “And I wonder if that’s not a lie too, that any story has a beginning. Life just happens and we pick a point and say, ‘It started here,’ when it didn’t really start there, even with one’s birth.” Continue reading “From Book 2: The Sex Discussions, Part Two”
From Book 2: The Sex Discussions, Part One
Desnos never locked his door and now this worried me. When I stepped inside I saw a lit candle in a far corner. Artaud lay there on a mattress, and someone lay next to him. Desnos was asleep on his sofa and Roger and Justine lay tangled on his regular mattress, but everyone else hadContinue reading “From Book 2: The Sex Discussions, Part One”
Stephen Barber’s Newest Work
How much do we love Stephen Barber’s works on Antonin Artaud? My God. He’s right up there with Mary Ann Caws, Martin Esslin and Florence de Mèredieu in my gratitude for his and their research and translations of Artaud, Breton, and Desnos. My next purchase: A Sinister Assassin: Antonin Artaud’s Last Writings, September 1947-March 1948!
From Book 2: In Total Darkness
February days turned grey with rain. Trapped inside, I fled the café scene for Louis’s small apartment. We spent a great deal of time together, for the two of us were seeing very little of our other friends lately. “We’re the only people who aren’t successful,” Louis joked, “or failing successfully.” Justine modeledContinue reading “From Book 2: In Total Darkness”
From Book One: Fernand
Outside the train station Marseilles greeted me with her heat and her noise and her dirt, so frightening to me as a child. Now I welcomed the jostling crowd, the colorful frocks, the flash of bright eyes and teeth, the smell of sweat and of perfume, the many swaggering languages. Palm trees and molderingContinue reading “From Book One: Fernand”
Photos from my visit to Paris to write this series
The Theatre de l’Atelier, where Antonin Artaud acted as a member of Charles Dullin’s troupe 
The last residents of Robert Desnos with a placard: “Here lived from 1934 to 1944 ROBERT DESNOS, French poet, arrested by the Gestapo and deported, he died because he believed in freedom, progress, and justice.” 
Those rose I laid on the grave of Desnos in Montparnasse Cemetery. Desnos was cremated with a rose at Terezin after liberation. 
The Select features prominently in my novel. 
A coaster from this cafe once a haunt of artists and the working class 
Artaud’s favorite cafe, where the waiters were so kind to him
The Double, a novel series
about Antonin Artaud and Robert Desnos
Read Excerpts
i have been working on this series for 30 years and it has taken me where I did not expect to go. I never set out to write this book. Artaud and I merely shared the same concerns about language.
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I do not intend to profit from the sacrifices of these two men. I only want the world to know about them and never forget them. Please explore this important work done by others.
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About the Author
A novel, about my friends and beloved teachers who I’ve never met, Antonin Artaud and Robert Desnos.
It was Artaud who took over the book I tried to write, and it was knowing Artaud who led me to Desnos.
I am a writer, a former actress and dancer, and many other things. I have not been born yet; I am not in the world yet.
All I ask is Life. Therefore I offer this failed “spell.”
