I just finished Paula Poundstone’s new book about seeking happiness through different experiences. I like her okay as a stand-up comedian, and really like her on NPR’s “Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me!”
The book was pretty good, with moments of both hilarity and poignancy. However, halfway through it I looked her up on Wikipedia to see her age, and I was then reminded that she was arrested for imperiling the lives of children (driving drunk with kids in car) and she plead “guilty” to another charge of lewd conduct with a minor – I’ve been unable to find what the exact charges were, but her foster parent license was pulled.
Much of the book is about her adopted kids and home life; after reading about her legal troubles, I really didn’t enjoy the book much (but, dammit! I paid $12.99 for a Kindle download, gotta finish this sucker!) I have no way of determining if the lewd conduct charge was minor or a bit spurious or serious, but just knowing there was some kind of yuckiness really turned me off from reading about her family.
Most other authors who have personal issues don’t cause me much pause (I won’t, however, read Norman Mailer – partly due to the silly, archaic machismo nature of his work, and mostly due to the attempted murder of his wife, which he got away with scot-free because he was Norman Mailer).
Are there authors that you have trouble reading due to their personal lives?
I read mosly fiction, and I try not to know much about the author, nor even reflect on who the author is. Of course, writers like Knausgaard, you have to. Maybe also Nabokov, Coetzee. It was helpful to know why Stieg Larsson wrote what he did.
It hasn’t really come up with me, yet, but I’d personally say it depends on a balance of how heinously “troubled” the author’s personal life is, and how dead they are.
e.g.: I imagine I’d be a lot more comfortable reading works by an author who did some really awful, loathsome stuff if they’ve been dead a hundred years. And thus also, by extension, unable to get any of my money.
If it helps, remember that every author has a troubled personal life. You just don’t know the details unless you’ve read a biography. Never read a biography of an author you like. If you can still read the author afterward, then assume the biography was whitewashed.
If I learned that an author I love was really like Jimmy Saville, it would certainly turn me off their works. I’d be crushed if it turned out someone like Gene Wolfe or Terry Pratchett were horrible people. I don’t know how I’d react.
“What has happened in the past 20 years, apparently, is that rape, child abuse and incest have been enough in the public eye for them to be accepted, and victims and survivors to routinely be believed now…”
Depends on what exactly they did. If I really like their work, I might read it at the library, or buy it second-hand, so at least they don’t get royalties.
(Fortunately, I’m not a fan of Zimmer Bradley. I tried reading Mists and just couldn’t get into it)
I found it kind of twisted when halfway through reading The Rape of Nanking, that the author committed suicide, I’m sure her research, including interviews with witnesses and survivors probably took a toll on her. But if you read her wiki she also seemed pretty delusional and schizophrenic or something towards the end, thinking she was being followed and stuff.
It looks like some posts here are buying into the myth of the suffering artist, which has been hotly debated: The Myth of the Tortured Artist | Hazlitt Why I hate the myth of the suffering artist | Books | The Guardian
I can’t say I’m a fan of it. While there have been many tortured artists, there have been happy ones too.
Part of the appeal of the poets Byron and Shelley was their “bad boy” reputations but I have to say that I don’t enjoy reading Shelley any more after reading about his cruelty to his wife Harriet.
I stopped reading Piers Anthony in the 90’s, pre-internet, when one of his books was about a 5 year old boy and 7 year old girl (or vice versa) traveling together and somehow the idea of sex got introduced. Squicked me the hell out, I was already on the edge with his previous books and I just stopped reading him cold.
Then of course, the internet comes around, I find out that it isn’t just me, and that there are even White Knights out there trying to tell me I only dislike him because I read lies on the internet. :rolleyes:
The Wikipedia article may have been changed since you read it, but it does not currently say she pled guilty to lewd conduct, only that she reached some sort of plea deal (this is tagged as needing clarification) on the child endangerment and lewd conduct charges. The article cites a New York Times story that says:
I don’t know any more about the case than that. It sounds like Poundstone has definitely had a troubled personal life and acknowledges that she suffered from a drinking problem and did drive drunk with her kids in the car, but she did not plead guilty to lewd conduct with a minor and those charges were dropped.
This is my vague recollection of what I heard (and I have no knowledge if what I heard is accurate). Poundstone adopted and fostered troubled children. Some of these children obviously had issues. One of the foster children was a twelve year old girl who frequently argued with Poundstone. After one heated argument, the girl contacted the police and accused Poundstone of molesting her. There was an investigation and no evidence was found to substantiate the girl’s allegation. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be true but Poundstone and the other children in the household strongly denied the allegation. So it appears possible that the girl may have made a false allegation against Poundstone in retaliation over their frequent arguments. The charges were dropped and the record was sealed because of the girl’s age.
At the same time this was going on, Poundstone drove some of her children to a local ice cream place. There was no accident or other incident but she had been drinking. So she was accused of child endangerment and pled guilty in a plea bargain.
Apparently Poundstone addresses her legal troubles toward the end of the book (I have not read it).
She originally pled not guilty to the child endangerment charges, then later struck a deal in which she pled no contest in exchange for prosecutors dropping three counts of committing lewd acts against a child and added the misdemeanor count.
Prosecutors claim “there had been inappropriate touching that caused mental or physical injury to one of the girls” under 14, which Poundstone denied.
Hemingway was a misogynist, racist douchebag who betrayed friends for sport. I love some of his work - *The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber *is the best short story I’ve ever read - but I sure as hell read him with a carton of salt. I appreciate his hard boiled style, but hold his Deep Thoughts™ at arm’s length.
The Hazlitt article asks whether artists are literally insane, which is nuts and not what anyone says here. The Guardian article is sheer straw man where it’s not being ludicrous. Obviously not everyone who has suffered produces great art. That’s not the argument anyone else makes.
My argument is far simpler. People are deeply flawed. Authors are people. Do the math.