Monsters

How rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read. An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life. Pablo Picasso beat his partners. Richard Wagner was deeply anti-Semitic. David Bowie slept with an underage fan. But many of us still love Guernica, 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. Part memoir, part treatise, and all treat. Clever and provocative.