Thread by @rebeccamakkai

My husband and I have a standing theoretical question (for each other and friends): If you could permanently divorce the work of one artist from their life and legacy, who would it be? Most people say Woody Allen. I never had a good answer. Now I do.

I want to add some context for this. I was sexually abused as a child, and was very fortunately believed by the adults in my life, including while I pressed charges. My reaction the Munro story today has foremost been deep respect and empathy and admiration for her daughter 🧵

(as well as rage at the pathetic few people I’ve seen wonder why she wasn’t more public about this sooner). I know I’m not alone in feeling deeply unnerved by what feels like a seismic shift in our understanding of someone who was formative to me and others as a writer 🧵

… I love her work so much that I don’t want to lose it, but am also horrified to see the meanings of many favorite (foundational, to me) stories shift under us. I’m thinking in particular of “Corrie,” which I just assigned to students last week…

The title character realizes she’s been being conned by her longtime boyfriend, but decides to stay quiet about it, to maintain the status quo. I don’t think I can ever read or teach that story again, reading into it what we now maybe have to.

I think part of what’s most upsetting to me (and maybe others?) is that this was a woman. We’ve gotten so horribly used to the Allens/Alexies of the world, and this feels more like… I don’t even know, like the call is coming from inside the house?

So one of my immediate emotional reactions is basically just “make it stop,” like I want to keep living in a world where this isn’t true, even thought of course that’s impossible. I just hate it so much.

This is partly to say that my initial tweet was “oh my god make it not true,” and absolutely not “let’s forgive her” — but also to say that I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this torn up about something like this before, and I wonder if the same true of other people out there…

Partly because she wasn’t just some shitty dude. Partly because it’s not just shitty art. And because it changes the meaning of work that SEEMED to deeply understand the human condition.

And in a way I can’t explain, it feels like a violation, like we were all in an intimate relationship with work that had a horrid underbellly all along. I want to jump on the pile of her work and somehow magically save it all, assign it to some other writer. But we can’t do that.