Starred Kirkus review for Monsters!
There’s no better feeling than getting an early starred review from the publication that a friend recently referred to as the “Iowa caucuses of books.” The review is smart and kind and, I feel, really gets the book. They also put Monsters on their “40 Most Anticipated Books of 2023” list! Here’s the review in full:
“What to do when we love the work and hate the life behind it?
Starting strong with a riveting chapter on Roman Polanski—genius filmmaker, child rapist, Holocaust survivor, Manson family victim—critic and memoirist Dederer, author of Poser and Love and Trouble, locates the urgency of the question of how to treat the work of "monster" artists and writers in the power of fandom. “When what you like becomes important, becomes defining, becomes an obsession, then an artist’s biography has even more clout, more power, than before,” writes the author. “You have not just admired, not just consumed the art, you’ve become it." Dederer’s analysis includes both usual and unusual suspects, often with remarkably original angles. In a chapter on Nabokov, Lolita, and Humbert Humbert, the author asks, "why did Nabokov, possessor of one of the most beautiful and supple and just plain funny prose styles in the modern English language, spend so much time and energy on this asshole?" Her answer, a blend of close reading and blind faith, is redemptive. Some of Dederer’s monsters are women: those who abandon their children or commit acts of violence. Here, we get possibly the first-ever pairing of Sylvia Plath and Valerie Solanas. With regard to a little-known queer band that was first adored and then cancelled by their young fans, Dederer's daughter's friend admits, "I still listen to them, I still love them. Even after everything.” Yes, she thinks, exactly, and from there, the author works up to a blanket permission slip for inconsistency: "You do not need to have a grand unified theory about what to do about Michael Jackson….The way you consume art doesn’t make you a bad person, or a good one. You’ll have to find some other way to accomplish that.”
Bringing erudition, emotion, and a down-to-earth style to this pressing problem, Dederer presents her finest work to date.”
Monsters will be published by Knopf on April 25, 2023 and by Sceptre in the UK on May 25. You can pre-order here:
