Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer asks an uncomfortable but important question: how can you approach the work of artists who have also been “monsters” in their personal lives? Dederer’s key example is Roman Polanski, an artist whose work she feels a deep connection to but whose past as a child rapist makes her question how she views his art. But Dederer also explores other artists who have done bad things: Woody Allen, Miles Davis, Norman Mailer, and Michael Jackson. Monsters arose out of Dederer’s well-received essay for The Paris Review and, in the book, Dederer doesn’t give easy answers to difficult questions, interrogating social norms and her own opinions with equal rigor. (Non-Fiction)