Seattle area writer, Claire Dederer, wrote a piece for the Paris Review in 2017 entitled, What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? She expanded this into the book, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma in 2023. It was on my library “for later” virtual shelf since it arrived.
It was the recent revelations of author Neil Gaiman that caused me to move it forward on my list. I’d been a fan of his writing for years since first encountering a reference to a short story in a Bob Neale book. It was an effect Bob called “The Boy Who Drew Angels” which itself was based on a Larry White bizarre magic effect “In Lizzie’s Hand”. The short story is found in the collection, Smoke and Mirrors, however checking the contents online, I am unable to confirm the title of the story.
When I read of Gaiman’s behavior, I collected the books and films, dropped them into a box and donated them to charity. Using a term I learned from Claire Dederer, they had a stain I couldn’t abide.
In her book, Dederer discussed her reaction to the behaviors of artists who behaved badly. Movie directors like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, musicians like Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell, and Miles Davis, and writers like Sylvia Plath, J. K. Rowling and Ernest Hemingway – to name a handful. We’re appalled and hurt, we take it personally, and we’re feeling let down. However as she points out, we’ve all done things that we aren’t proud of and would rather be forgotten.
Our little sub-culture of magic has its monsters too. Some are well publicized in Andy of the Jerx’s list of names of those who have been convicted of sexual abuse. Then there’s the one in magic who has gotten away with his behavior because of his power, money and influence.
One thing I realized reading Dederer’s book is that wrapping my head around the behavior of these people isn’t a “we” problem – it’s a “me” problem as what am I going to do? Will I continue to support them or rid myself of them? For Gaiman, I’ve chosen the latter.
