What do we do when we love and admire an artist’s work, maybe develop a sort of passion for the artist her/himself, and then find out that the artist has done monstrous things? Like raped young girls, or abused his partners, or abandoned her children, or, and this surprised the heck out of me, “exposed” himself during a musical performance (Think Jim Morrison of the Doors). What do we do with our cognitive dissonance and conflicting emotions?

Claire Dederer, in her MONSTERS: A FAN’S DILEMMA, invites us on her journey as she explores these questions. I’d read her previous books—”Love and Trouble” and “Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses”, and I liked them, mostly recalling how amazingly honest and vulnerable she was. Though I didn’t experience the degree of distress Dederer did from early on, when she was horrified by Roman Polanski’s monstrous behavior with young girls, I’ve had some experience with letdown from a treasured idol. I mean, Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen-year -old cousin, right? And Elvis, my little girl Love Craze, didn’t turn out well at all. But I was mostly drawn to MONSTERS because of the press it’s been getting and its bold, compelling cover.

I was taken from the beginning. With Dederer’s truthfulness, yes, but also with the fascinating material she’s researched on the Monsters she writes about—Wagner, Picasso, Doris Lessing, for example—and how she checks her reactions to the research findings and then checks her reactions to her reactions—I mean, she’s truly looking for the deepest truths she can find.

So many levels of interest in this book—the facts themselves, about the various artistic monsters, and Dederer’s fascination with the relationship between the audience (you and I) and the artistic work, and her exploration of what a “Monster” is, and her “take” on “Cancel Culture.” There’s a lot to absorb, and I may read it again.

Despite the surprising awfulness of the famous artists, if MONSTERS was all about dissing bad people who’ve done artistic things, I’d have lost interest fast. Instead, it grapples with questions about the human condition and our understandable emotional dilemmas, and it made me examine myself.  

Great read. I highly recommend it.

#