A provocative and challenging interrogation of how we make and experience art and of the link between genius and monstrosity.

Claire Dederer asks if we can we love the work of Polanski, Woody Allen, Michael Jackson, Wagner and the many other feted writers, artists and musicians, most of whom happen to be male.

Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity?

She explores the audience's relationship with some of these artists asking how we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work. In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other?

Monsters by Claire Dederer
Read by Julianna Jennings
Abridged and Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4 Show less