Christopher Schroeder

Tag: books

  • More From Our Monsters?

    I was more intrigued by Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer (2023) at its beginning than I was by its end.

    This book is presented as an audience memoir by its author. In it, Dederer considers the question of art created by artists who have behaved badly. She considers a range of different artists, including herself, and she concludes that audiences emotionally respond to whatever moves them, which for her seems sufficient.

    publisher cover of MONSTERS: A FAN'S DILEMMA by Claire Dederer

    Others readers’ reactions included a debate about the ethics of Dederer’s conclusion and this question. One for example advocated for a distinction between artists who would remuneratively benefit from the consumption of their art, which audiences should avoid, and those who would not, which was acceptable to consume. Another argued for the standards or criteria she had obtained from The Feminist Mystique, which determine her decisions about what, or whose, art to consume even as she was willing to acknowledge the legitimacy of others’ limits.

    Both of these reactions ignore the effects of distribution networks for example and larger social and economic forces that affect whose art is available for consumption or what art certain audiences are expected to consume. Some even so far to argue for the impossibility of ethical consumption in capitalist economies, which could make the more conventional conclusion — art should be separated from artists — that Dederer criticizes the only attractive answer.

    Some reviewers describe this noteworthy and award-winning book, which expands on Dederer’s Paris Review essay, as part memoir and part debate, in which she resists the option of extending her original thesis across hundreds of pages and insists upon repeatedly rethinking her answers to this question. Others suggest it’s more a meditation on the moral ambiguity of this issue that connects the history of artists with the histories of audiences.

    One problem I had was that I expected a wider range of answers, which wouldn’t have precluded Dederer’s conclusion. This expectation is less a criticism of her personalization of this subject, which in retrospect is understandable, as it is a suggestion about its oversimplification, or reduction.

    I also object to her conclusion, which is another problem with this book I have. Such a conclusion allows art consumers to do little more than accept others’ experiences. At most, we can only inquire into others’ interpretive (consumptive?) experiences, or ask how they came to their conclusions about the art they’ve consumed. Such questions are intriguing yet ultimately limited and for me unsatisfying.

    I did appreciate the way this undeniably entertaining book engages its question and its readers, which is an accomplishment. I just wanted more of both.

  • More Like a Summer Slurpee

    NPR critic Maureen Corrigan suggests that El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott (2025) is one of the better summer suspense novels, but I think it barely qualifies as a beach read.

    Harper, the youngest of three Bishop sisters, is invited by her older sisters Pam and Deb to join a female financial club that seems as much a ponzi scheme as an empowerment source. Their individual financial needs are not unlike those of the other middle-aged women in their Detroit hometown, and the ensuing mayhem could have been caused by any of these financial investors or Harper’s ex-brother-in-law or her niece.

    Harper, the youngest of three Bishop sisters, is invited by her older sisters Pam and Deb to join a female financial club that seems as much a ponzi scheme as an empowerment source. Their individual financial needs are not unlike those of the other middle-aged women in their Detroit hometown, and the ensuing mayhem could have been caused by any of these financial investors or Harper’s ex-brother-in-law or her niece.

    The suspense, which surfaces early, eventually rises to a modest wave, but that isn’t enough to carry readers to the shore. Moreover, possible themes — sisters’ adult relationships for example or female financial independence — loom on the horizon but never crest atop the churning water. And the character development at most can sustain casual floaters who would still have to paddle to the shore.

    This story despite any aspirations gets caught in a genre conventions current. Abbott is know for her efforts to reconfigure conventional genres around female perspectives, but this attempt seems unable to decide whether it wants to be a serious story or is willing to settle for something somewhat less.

    As such, it seems unfinished even for a summer beach read.

  • Quite Careless Indeed

    Sarah Wynn-Williams’s (2025) book Careless People is offered as a memoir of her six years at Meta (Facebook), but it focuses as much on the people whose decisions created this company, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Joel Kaplan, who was reportedly hired to appease the Trump administration.

    Wynn-Williams, a former New Zealand diplomat, wanted to work for Facebook she explains because she believed in its potential and its power. She also recognized that this company needed a global perspective to maximize this potential for positive impact, and was eventually offered a position, which she developed in a way that allowed her to become central to its global policies.

    This focus as much as anything explains the emergency injunction won by Meta to prevent Wynn-Williams from promoting her book although that according to some only increased its sales. If so, this response obviously backfired, but that likely means more money for Wynn-Williams but does not increase the likelihood of the public benefits she once identified.

    Wynn-Williams generally knows how to tell engaging stories. Some moments are uneven, but many are engaging. I consistently wondered what happened next, and what some of these powerful yet peculiar people would say or do.

    She also if this account is accurate has admirable attributes, such as confidence, motivation, and resilience. These seem even more so in contrast with her shortcomings that she details, such as the time she stopped in the middle of labor with her feet in the stirrups to draft a requested talking points memo, and insisted despite her husband’s and doctor’s requests upon sending it before returning to the task at hand.

    This and other moments might make some question Wynn-Williams’s judgment. Perhaps most alarming was her willingness to stay in her position despite the political, social, and individual harm, such as blatant sexual harassment, that she witnessed and even experienced. These decisions some could suggest might have condoned such conditions no matter how often she cited the need of her family for health care or any increased capacity to change the company as a company insider.

    Wynn-Williams’s relationship with Meta ends when she is fired. She insists that she had wanted to leave and had been searching for another job, but some might wonder whether she would have ever left on her own volition. Such critics could cite her decision to relocate reportedly at Zuckerberg’s request, which as she admits affects not just her but also her family, or her concerns about the economic consequences if she did.

    Wynn-Williams also offers what could be considered a cautionary tale for those who might still be techno-optimists. She isn’t wrong to imagine the potential power in social media and other digital technologies. At the same time, she depicts the risks of being naive about surveillance capitalism, and especially its ability to disable this potential and exploit users.

    That perhaps is a bigger problem. Despite her engaging stories, she hasn’t provided a narrative. Many moments are engaging although according to some contain little new information, but these together are never quite connected into a sequence of events that ultimately offers useful insight about not just this author but also if readers are lucky the times or world in which we live.

    This flaw can be found even in its title, which refers to Tom and Daisy and their relationship in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s (1925) canonical The Great Gatsby. In it, Tom and Daisy are indeed careless, and even entitled, but Mark, Sheryl, and Joel in contrast seem more than careless, and rather self-absorbed, exploitative, and even ruthless in this book.

    A question I have after reading it is whether Wynn-Williams could be considered part of this problem.