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, 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? She explores the audience's relationship with artists from Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.

A Fan's Dilemma

Monsters

'Funny, lively and convivial... how rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read' MEGAN NOLAN, SUNDAY TIMES 'An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life' JENNY OFFILL A passionate, provocative and blisteringly smart interrogation of how we experience art in the age of #MeToo, and whether we can separate an artist's work from their biography. What do we do with the art of monstrous men? Can we love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? What makes women artists monstrous? And what should we do with beauty, and with our unruly feelings about it? Claire Dederer explores these questions and our relationships with the artists whose behaviour disrupts our ability to understand the work on its own terms. She interrogates her own responses and behaviour, and she pushes the fan, and the reader, to do the same. Morally wise, deeply considered and sharply written, Monsters gets to the heart of one of our most pressing conversations. 'A blisteringly erudite and entertaining read . . . It's a book that deserves to be widely read and will provoke many conversations' NATHAN FILER 'Wise and bold and full of the kind of gravitas that might even rub off' LISA TADDEO 'An incredible book, the best work of criticism I have read in a very long time' NICK HORNBY

A Fan’s Dilemma

From the New York Times best-selling author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, a ferocious, sexy, hilarious memoir about going off the rails at midlife and trying to reconcile the girl she was with the woman she has become. Claire Dederer is a happily married mother of two, ages nine and twelve, when she suddenly finds herself totally despondent and, simultaneously, suffering through a kind of erotic reawakening. This exuberant memoir shifts between her present experience as a middle-aged mom in the grip of mysterious new hungers and herself as a teenager--when she last experienced life with such heightened sensitivity and longing. From her hilarious chapter titles ("How to Have Sex with Your Husband of Seventeen Years") to her subjects--from the boyfriend she dumped at fourteen the moment she learned how to give herself an orgasm, to the girls who ruled her elite private school ("when I left Oberlin I thought I had done with them forever, but it turned out ...they also edited all the newspapers and magazines, and wrote all the books"), to raising a teenage daughter herself--Dederer writes with an electrifying blend of wry wit and raw honesty. She exposes herself utterly, and in doing so captures something universal about the experience of being a woman, a daughter, a wife.

A Midlife Reckoning

Love and Trouble

Describes the factors that compelled the author to try yoga 10 years ago and her subsequent enthusiasm for the practice, recounting her love-hate relationship with trickier poses while revealing how her yoga experience came to reflect her values and generational dynamics.

My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses

Poser

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • A timely, passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of cancel culture, and of the link between genius and monstrosity. Can we love the work of controversial classic and contemporary artists but dislike the artist? "A lively, personal exploration of how one might think about the art of those who do bad things" —Vanity Fair “Monsters leaves us with Dederer’s passionate commitment to the artists whose work most matters to her, and a framework to address these questions about the artists who matter most to us." —The Washington Post "[Dederer] breaks new ground, making a complex cultural conversation feel brand new." —Ada Calhoun, author of Also a Poet From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, Monsters is “part memoir, part treatise, and all treat” (The New York Times). This unflinching, deeply personal book expands on Claire Dederer’s instantly viral Paris Review essay, "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?" Can we love the work of artists such as Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Miles Davis, Polanski, or Picasso? Should we? Dederer explores the audience's relationship with artists from Michael Jackson to Virginia Woolf, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. Does genius deserve special dispensation? 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? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.

A hilarious, confrontational and moving story of one woman's attempts to navigate her way through the challenges of mid-life, for lovers of HOW TO BE A WOMAN and I'M NOT WITH THE BAND. 'Claire Dederer is not only a brilliant author, but an honest and brave one' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE Claire Dederer's youth was wild, an endless cascade of beer and rock and acid and sex that left her benumbed and adrift. But then, after two decades of disciplined transformation, she'd become a successful writer, a faithful wife, and a mother - a real adult. That is, until one morning at 44, she found herself overcome by the same sexual cravings and ineffable sadness of her younger years. The hedonistic girl, 'that crazy bitch', was back - or had she never left? Frank and disarming, seductive and hilarious, Love and Trouble: A Mid-life Reckoning is Dederer's attempt to reckon with those urges, and to reconcile the girl she'd been with the woman she's become.

Love and Trouble: Memoirs of a Former Wild Girl

¿Cómo nos relacionamos con el arte en la era de la cancelación? ¿Podemos llegar a amar al genio y su obra a la vez que detestamos al monstruo? Un inteligente ensayo que nos enfrenta a nuestros dilemas morales y contradicciones. ¿Podemos apreciar la obra de artistas como Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Miles Davis, Polanski, Woody Allen o Picasso? ¿Deberíamos? La escritora Claire Dederer se propuso indagar en la relación que tenemos con la obra de aquellos artistas a quienes admiramos, al tiempo que lidiamos moralmente con su personalidad, en ocasiones monstruosa. Desde Michael Jackson hasta Virginia Woolf, la autora se cuestiona cómo conciliar nuestra indignación y desprecio con el amor profundo que sentimos por el arte. Y va más allá: ¿la monstruosidad masculina equivale a la femenina? ¿Si una artista es también madre, una identidad rompe fatalmente con la otra? Este libro, precedido de un gran éxito de crítica, ahonda en la disonancia cognitiva propia de una época en la que hemos dejado de transigir ante el genio por la mera razón de serlo, pero plantea también importantes reflexiones sobre la pervivencia de su obra y sobre su concepción misma: dado que el arte tiene el imperativo de retratar los elementos más oscuros de la psique, ¿no se expone a apropiarse de ellos? Es más, ¿qué ocurre cuando el artista contempla el abismo durante demasiado tiempo? ¿No puede estar siendo víctima de su propia genialidad? Con atino, brillantez y la honestidad de quien se enfrenta a sus propios dilemas morales, Dederer ha logrado una obra trascendental y compleja que eleva el debate intelectual.

¿Se puede separar el autor de su obra?

Monstruos

In dit openhartige, zeer persoonlijke boek dat voortborduurt op haar actuele en veelgelezen essay ‘Wat doen we met de kunst van monsterlijke mannen?’ vraagt Claire Dederer zich af: Kunnen en mogen we houden van het werk van Ernest Hemingway, Roman Polanski, J.K. Rowling, Virginia Woolf of Picasso? Krijgen genieën een speciale vrijstelling en is er een verband tussen genialiteit en monsterlijkheid? Dederer verkent de relatie van het publiek met kunstenaars, van Woody Allen tot Michael Jackson, en onderzoekt of we een evenwicht kunnen vinden tussen ons onmiskenbare gevoel van morele verontwaardiging en onze even onmiskenbare liefde voor het werk. Monsters is uiterst actueel, moreel wijs en eerlijk tot op het bot.

Dilemma's van een fan

Blazingly intelligent, wickedly funny, and piercingly honest, a memoir that captures the perils and pleasures of girlhood, womanhood, and life itself. “One of my favorite books of the last few years.” —Cheryl Strayed “Sentence for sentence, a more pleasure-yielding midlife memoir is hard to think of.” —The Atlantic At mid-life, Claire Dederer developed a sudden yearning for jailbreak. In this exuberant memoir, she reflects on two periods in her life uncannily similar in their emotional intensity: her present experience as a middle-aged mom in the grip of unruly and mysterious new hungers, and her recollections of herself as a teenager.

'How rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read' MEGAN NOLAN, Sunday Times 'An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life' JENNY OFFILL Pablo Picasso beat his partners. Richard Wagner was deeply antisemitic. David Bowie slept with an underage fan. But many of us still love Guernica and the Ring cycle and Ziggy Stardust. And what are we to do with that love? How are we, as fans, to reckon with the biographical choices of the artists whose work sustains us? Wildly smart and insightful, Monsters is an exhilarating attempt to understand our relationship with art and the artist in the twenty-first century. 'An incredible book, the best work of criticism I have read in a very long time' NICK HORNBY 'Part memoir, part treatise, and all treat' New York Times 'Clever and provocative' Daily Telegraph

"Jag hade många förutfattade meningar om yoga. Trots dessa slarvigt underbyggda men starka reservationer min specialitet) hade jag i åratal misstänkt att jag förmodligen borde börja med yoga. Yoga verkade vara precis det jag önskade mig: något som kunde lugna mig. Det verkade också vara precis det jag inte önskade mig: något som gjorde att alla kunde se vilket bedrövligt tillstånd jag befann mig i, kunde se mina skakningar, min ängslan och min oro. Som alla andra blev jag skräckslagen av tanken på ett rum fullt av människor som var duktiga på att göra övningarna. Jag tänkte att en video skulle vara den bästa ingången; kanske skulle jag kunna tillgodogöra mig det jag behövde utan all den förbaskade förnedringen." Mitt liv i 23 yogaställningarär ingen vanlig yogabok. Claire Dederers självbiografi ska berättelse är en resa genom några år av utveckling och självrannsakan, om familjeliv med dess vågor och dalar och om konsten att hålla liv i en lång relation. Samtidigt tittar hon tillbaka på sin egen barndom och förundras över sina föräldrars snåriga, oavslutade äktenskap. Refl ektioner kring hur man är den bästa mamman, den mest ambitiösa föräldern som presterar den rätta sortens ekologiska mellanmål följs av resonemang om livet, kärleken och asanas.

Claire Dederer

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