Marion Zimmer Bradley

I posted this in another thread a few weeks ago. It's terrible. One of my favourite books is by her and is the story of two trapeze artists' gay love affair in the 40s. In it, the older man seduces the younger in his teens, around the age Bradley's husband seemed to target boys. It's ruined the book irrevocably for me, as it reads now as an apolegetist book for behaviour I could never condone.
 
Sorry missed that thread. Some of the scenes in Mists of Avalon have taking on a whole new meaning now. To be honest, I will be binning her books that are in my collection. Child abuse goes well beyond the pale and there are no excuses that will justify it.
 
Yes. For many years MZB was my favorite author. The Mists of Avalon is still one of my favorite books, it just resonates with me. But I was horrified when I heard her strong defense of her husband's rape of a prepubescent boy. I still don't know how to reconcile that with liking her books. I've also read some interviews where both her son and daughter accuse her of sexually abusing them growing up. She really seems to have been a horrible person.
 
They should burn the bitches books.

Doesn't matter if some people still like the stories she wrote, so what?

I used to enjoy Gary Glitters "Another Rock n Roll Christmas" as a good old festive singalong - but not any more.

Things move on, let the noncey old cow fade from living memory.

There are plenty of other authors who aren't kiddy fiddlers
 
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Extollager said:
MZB's daughter has published a book about what she endured.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0787XLK4H/?tag=id2100-20
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I read the book last night, since it was available through Kindle Unlimited, and I knew that there were people I had known who would undoubtedly appear in Moira's story (I never knew her but was acquainted with many of the same people, including a number of members of her family), and I was half curious and half reluctant to read what she had to say. I had heard some of it before, some of it many years ago, some more recently, so I thought I was prepared, and would be dismayed by what I read but not shocked. As it turned out, there were people I had not guessed would come into the story, and there were some shocks after all. She even described an event at which I was present, the SCA tournament in Lodi where the little boy drowned in the lake.

It was hard reading it, but it did answer some things I'd had questions about for years.
 
kythe said:
Yes. For many years MZB was my favorite author. The Mists of Avalon is still one of my favorite books, it just resonates with me. But I was horrified when I heard her strong defense of her husband's rape of a prepubescent boy. I still don't know how to reconcile that with liking her books. I've also read some interviews where both her son and daughter accuse her of sexually abusing them growing up. She really seems to have been a horrible person.
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As is so often the case with people who have been accused of terrible things, MZB was not a "horrible person" when one dealt with her "in person."
 
I see that it was edited by Vox Day of the "Rabid Puppies" Hugo Awards debacle. Hmm.
 
Yes, and his forward makes for annoying reading, as he grinds his personal axes. Her own theories on homosexuality are warped, but what would one expect when her entire childhood was made hideous by gay parents who were also sex addicts and child abusers? She hasn't yet learned, and perhaps never will, to separate their sexuality from their general insanity since they expressed so much of it through sex. That may be her burden to bear for the whole of her life. And since so many otherwise admirable people were too tolerant and unsuspicious—when the evidence of so much was right there in front of them—to act when they might have been able to help her and her brother, not to mention in some cases their own children, it's not surprising that she's taken up with a raging bigot who has accepted her story without question.

Dave said:
As is so often the case with people who have been accused of terrible things, MZB was not a "horrible person" when one dealt with her "in person."
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I imagine that depended on who one was and what the circumstances were of their dealings with her in person. Their ideas about what she was like in person might differ between those who were victimized by the Breens and their accomplices and those who were not.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
I imagine that depended on who one was and what the circumstances were of their dealings with her in person. Their ideas about what she was like in person might differ between those who were victimized by the Breens and their accomplices and those who were not.
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As is generally true of everybody, I suppose...
I'm generally one of the ones who never knows what's really going on.
 
This I have seen this::
Teresa Edgerton said:
I imagine that depended on who one was and what the circumstances were of their dealings with her in person. Their ideas about what she was like in person might differ between those who were victimized by the Breens and their accomplices and those who were not.
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:: And have known many people who fit this mold. They treat family rough and overly stern to a point of near abuse; while in public they are pleasant and kind to strangers. Only perhaps when overindulging alcohol or drugs do they ever lose track and misbehave in public and even then they are often at their worst when they get home.

Those children were all treated horribly in this case and my ears burn every time I read that defensive statement that goes something like, 'But why didn't somebody say something! I wouldn't have dreamed of doing it if I thought someone objected.' They should have locked him up the minute that came out of his mouth.
 
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