Monsters

Name: Monsters
Author: Claire Dederer
ISBN: 9780525655114

by Claire Dederer

From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, a passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of #MeToo, and of the link between genius and monstrosity. In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Review essay, "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?" Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss?…

Recommended by

NPR Books We Love

"What do we do with great art made by men (it’s mostly men) who’ve done bad things? Men like Pablo Picasso, Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemingway, Roman Polanski, Miles Davis and Woody Allen, to name but a few. Do we put blinders on and just focus on the work? Do geniuses, as Monsters asks, get a “hall pass” for their behavior? Or do we “cancel” the art of men who’ve been “monstrous” in their behavior? Claire Dederer, who started out as a film critic, writes with wit and passion in this slim, smart book."

NPR Books We Love — 2023 · apps.npr.org

Brandon Taylor

"I was reading Claire Dederer's Monsters and found out that Jenny Diski was Doris Lessing's foster daughter! I was so shocked, I stopped reading."

By the Book: Brandon Taylor · nytimes.com