Recently, the literary world was shocked when famed author Neil Gaiman was accused of sexually abusing eight women. The events chronicled in these allegations are heinous and are, needless to say, reprehensible.
I, like many of his former fans, am disappointed. For many years, I was charmed and illuminated by his work. The film “Coraline” was one of my first exposures to the horror genre (which is my favorite genre), and I was similarly thrilled and delighted when I read the original novel by Gaiman years later. “The Sandman” is one of the most influential graphic novels of all time because of its ingenuity and multilayered characters. “Fragile Things” is a unique collection of (mostly) good short stories. For a period of time, “The Graveyard Book” and “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” were two of my favorite children’s novels. “Good Omens” also feels quite prescient today, as it features two unlikely main characters coming together to avoid an impending apocalypse.
All of this to say that I’ve loved every single Gaiman book that I have read (except for “Stardust”), which makes this news disheartening and even angering. Many fans have gone as far as burning their collections of Gaiman books and vowing to never buy or read any of his books again. Others have scoured their collection, looking for clues and red flags in any of his work that may point to his true nature. Others, like me, have been stuck in a grey area in the middle.
In this case, I’ve done what I do quite often to find solace in the midst of confusion: I’ve turned to relatively dense literary theory. Reader response theory gained traction in the mid-1900s, and it places emphasis on the relationship developed between the reader and the text, specifically the reader’s experience reading the text. Essentially, someone who subscribes to reader response theory might say this to someone reading a Neil Gaiman book: “Neil Gaiman doesn’t matter.”
I don’t know if this is just an excuse for me to keep reading the Neil Gaiman books that I love (although I refuse to buy any new ones). However, the relationship between me and “Coraline” or “Good Omens” isn’t something that Gaiman created; that is a bond that exists only between me and the book. Gaiman just happens to be the awful person who wrote some words on a page.
This can be translated outside of this situation as well. I urge you to not stop loving a piece of art that has changed your life or has had a significant impact on your life in some way, even if its creator is not a good person. You are above letting some writer ruin those happy memories you may have had while reading their book, watching their movie or listening to their song. That relationship is sacred.
But don’t let me tell you what to do. I’m just some writer, after all.