Rarefied Air? – Notoriety is the Newest Award for Acclaimed Authors
by Cindy Layton
A handful of authors receive, sometimes repeatedly, the most lofty of awards: Pulitzers for the literary types, a Newbery or Hugo for genre types. They, more often, go on to achieve status and even celebrity.
But what happens when they achieve notoriety? I mean of the notorious type.
At the recent passing of Alice Munro, her youngest daughter revealed that the acclaimed author refused to protect her from her stepfather’s continued sexual abuse.
Munro, exalted by critics and readers, both a Pulitzer and Man Booker award winner, wrote about the lives of women in both simple and complex ways. How can one read these stories without some tether to the new knowledge, facts that now change the font on every page?
And if that were not enough, rarefied Newbery and Carnegie winner Neil Gaiman has been accused of sexual assault in a recounting full of grooming scenarios, power dynamics, and egotistical kinkiness. “Call me master” he repeatedly demanded of his victims. That cheesy line would be edited out of any manuscript, not just for the ick factor.
A while back, I wrote about why fiction is an effective method of conveying a message that may be difficult to hear. I used this quote from Gaiman:
..truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth…
And so I wonder: do these lies in the form of fiction reveal something about the authors themselves that is not so hidden? Fiction isn’t assumed to be autobiographical, necessarily, but the roots of a story are never from whole cloth. Where is the tell? Munro wrote more than once of a mother abandoning her children, sometimes with little sentimentality.
It does seem that we’re beyond a time when assault and harassment is disqualifying in any sense. In October of 2017 The New York Times published the story about Harvey Weinstein that spawned the #ME-Too movement. Remember that?
Despite Weinstein’s conviction, the ensuing years have seen, not just a resurgence in high-profile claims, but also the rejection of those claims and a discounting of the seriousness with which sexual harassment and assault is treated. The prevailing message has somehow become an embrace of the idea that when you’re a star they let you do it, and further, those charges should not interfere with one’s professional reputation or career. Their work is that important. It must be judged apart from any allegations associated with the creator.
As consumers and citizens, we must decide for ourselves. Where do we rank our value of the work of creative, but deeply and dangerously flawed people?
Can and should we compartmentalize the work apart from those creators? Can we edit out, in our own minds, the knowledge of what they’ve been accused of as we read, watch the screen, listen to the audiobook?
Is there no ethical quandary created when we choose to financially enrich perpetrators?
How much of an investment of our time, our money, our praise is justified? Is our need for entertainment, engagement, or fascination/distraction more elevated than the dignity of survivors?
The answer is often, sadly, yes.
Good authors develop a relationship of authority and trust with their reader. That’s why it’s especially disturbing when that trust is violated. Iconic figures in the world of art, and in particular writing, will continue to shock and disappoint us in profound and disturbing ways.*
It’s what we do with the knowledge that matters.
I’ve written more on the depth and breadth of abuse against women, in particular, as it impacts the writing community. Here’s a sample from the blog:
Where Michael Mailer complains his father, Norman Mailer, has been cancelled.
*The question is not limited to just publishing. Business, sports, government - everywhere we look, we find it.
