Is it OK to love a film, a book or a painting if its maker turns out to be a bad person? Not just lovable aw-shucks everyday bad, the sort who forgets to pick the kids up because he or she is too busy making art, but someone whose behaviour is immoral, illegal or both? A monster, in fact.
This is the dilemma that Claire Dederer addresses in this exhilarating, gnarly inquiry into the business of separating the author’s repugnant life from his or her magnificent work. It is hardly a new topic – in the middle of the last century, the proponents of New Criticism were arguing about what they called the “biographical fallacy” and duly concluding that the critic should set aside an artist’s life and concentrate on their work alone. But then, Dederer points out tartly, they would say that, wouldn’t they? As mostly elite white men, these critics were naturally inclined to hand out free passes to others for the kind of bad behaviour with which they were themselves on intimate terms – parental absence, alcoholic indulgence and that impregnable self-regard that inflicts collateral damage on everyone else.
