Now this was a fascinating book! In Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer, Dederer offers monstrous male artists (in every form) and analyzes their audience. As an avid reader, and citizen of the world, I am somewhat interested in the question, especially in the wake of the “me too” movement and subsequent “cancel culture.” Dederer wrestles with the question and avoids simple soundbites and quick solutions.

As a reader, I was interested in our similarities and differences. We both love Woody Allen movies, but she loves Polanski and I can take or leave his work. She has a distaste for Hemingway, and I still think his work is extraordinary. We both love Carver.

However, what was most interesting to me was in the last half of the book, when she turns her lens toward herself: “Am I a Monster?” and “Abandoning Mothers.” As a mother and an intellectual and an author, and, maybe above all else, someone who delights in deep focus, the questions Dederer asks are those that I share.

A question arises, “Do my children matter as much as my writing?” Dederer seems to have a good relationship with her children, seems to have balanced it all in some kind of positive way, but it was not without struggle.

However, for me, this is not the question, but rather an adjacent statement, which is that I matter too. Contemporary motherhood culture has women give of themselves so completely that there is no space for exploration, creation, for the self of the mother/person. To me this is intolerable, and I find myself needing to claw out a space for myself within the rigid expectations of motherhood within my culture, also still while the other thing is true: I love my children and feel deeply grateful for them. Plus, they inspire a greater depth of work in me that I otherwise could have created. And, amid all of these realities, I matter too.