Fine. Let's Talk About Neil Gaiman.

It had to be done eventually.

I. If You Dare Nothing

Bush Intercontinental Airport thrummed with the commotion of ten-thousand voices, most traveling half a lifetime from one terminal to another. Myself and some others aided in the noise, though we were merely waiting, wrapped amongst each other in a circle on the airport’s tile floor, each monitoring the flights that would whisk us away to different corners of the world. It was the end of a long, magnificent week in September of 2018, which saw us all as the last remnants of an ocean-bound writing retreat, our creativity and careers full-up with inspiration.

“I know it’s an unpopular answer,” I bided my opportunity to contribute to the subject shared amongst the circle. “But I think my favorite is The Graveyard Book.”

“No, that’s one of his more popular books,” said the man across from me, one of the hosts and instructors for that year’s retreat. “It’s my favorite, too.”

The Graveyard Book was author Neil Gaiman’s reinvention of The Jungle Book, and was, amongst other things, about an infant boy who avoided a tragic death by accidentally stumbling into a nearby graveyard. The otherworldly residents of the cemetery would take upon themselves the responsibility of protecting and raising the boy, in a world which had taken everything else from him. He would learn the ways of the living, from the wisdom and guidance of the dead.

It is a book and concept I enjoyed so much that I would later reappropriate the basic conceit into a Dungeons & Dragon’s character I named Lenalie. Lenalie was the elder sister of two, her younger sister played by one of my oldest friends, Michael. Together, the young girls were raised in a similar fashion to the protagonist of The Graveyard Book, but with the added wrinkle that all the ghosts belonged to a clan of swordsmen and their families who’d been slaughtered in the night. In this, Lenalie learned the ways of the blade, while also developing a quick connection with the dead that allowed her to travel from one graveyard to the next, seeking insights, wisdom, and passing along peace.

A surprisingly long ripple from the original pebble. Neil Gaiman has a way of writing that made such things not only possible, but common. Often transfixing, occasionally inspirational.

“If you dare nothing,
then when the day is over,
nothing is all you will have gained.”

It was one small fingerprint on my creative expression, among many other fingerprints that were starting to define my creative identity at the time.

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane is one of the last books Neil Gaiman will probably ever publish.

I listened to it in a single sitting, narrated by the voice of the author on a car ride from Omaha, Nebraska, northbound to Minnesota, where a couple friends and their newly-born son lived at the time. The ethereal, hypnotic cadence of Gaiman’s storytelling was so admirable, in my estimation, that it was worth trying to emulate, and so I did. A year or so later, I would finish a short story titled The Stardust Mirror, which would be part of a birthday gift to my girlfriend at the time. The Stardust Mirror was an explicit effort on my part to capture a similar tone and feeling to Gaiman’s voice, so rich with whimsy and imagination. I must have been at least somewhat successful, as one of my beta readers familiar with Gaiman’s body of work specifically commented on how I seemed to be cribbing his style. It was a style that felt worth the effort.

I would later include that story as the anchor of a short story collection—my first ever short story collection. To this day, I believe it’s one of the best, most meticulously-crafted pieces I’ve ever written.

Another fingerprint, added to the canvas.

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I was never able to get into The Sandman, the graphic novel series widely regarded as Gaiman’s magnum opus. But I was quite into the first season of the TV adaptation. The unusual politics of Dream, his realm, and the other Endless and their servants made for enrapturing content. But I and many others took particular note of one of the Endless in particular: Dream’s relentlessly patient, supremely empathetic sister: Death.

“I’m not merciful or blessed. I’m just me. I’ve got a job to do, and I do it. When the first living thing existed, I was there. Waiting.”

In the episode “The Sound of Her Wings,” Dream tracks down his sister to inquire about a difficult situation. In so doing, he follows her through part of her daily routine. You may expect what that routine consists of: Death—who appears as a young woman with a gentle voice and the smile of your kindest friend—moves slowly from one place to another, always arriving just in time to witness someone’s last moment. She is not the cause, merely the one who greets you at the end, and consoles you through the dissonance of realizing you are no longer living, and the grief of never getting to share your last words. We watch as she steps into a nursery, picks up a baby from a cradle, and holds it with all the closeness and compassion it will never have a chance to experience.

“I’m so sorry, little one. I’m afraid that’s all you get.”

And she walks away with the child’s soul in her arms, as we hear the mother come back into the nursery from the other room, warm bottle in hand, confused and suddenly frightened about why her baby isn’t breathing anymore—the escalating panic of her voice as Dream and Death retreat to Death’s next client.

For all that we will talk about later in this article, I will forever love this interpretation and execution of Death. Gone is the doom, the dread, the menace. Death is not a demon or reaper, eager to bring down its scythe on your neck. It is the eternal kindness of a young woman with a big heart, stuck with the most heartbreaking job in existence. Someone who cares and understands, and knows you are scared of the dark, but will hold your hand so you aren’t alone. She is not the judge, and does not decide your fate. But she will face it with you.

This, combined with many other empathetically-charged characters and scenes, in addition to the naturally-soothing cadence of his subdued British-English, made Neil Gaiman just…very likable, as both a person and a writer. I remember making the comment, though I remember not when, that it would be amazing to have Neil Gaiman as a grandfather. He had perfect grandfather energy.

That is the highest praise I ever lauded upon him. Not quite idolizing, but certainly held in higher regard than most. So, not only did I want to assimilate part of his writing finesse, but his spirit, too.

Fingerprints.

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I run a writing group in the heart of Austin, TX. This has become the star around which my life has largely orbited for the last two and a half years. The majority of my social engagements are a result of this group, even if not directly as a participant or facilitator of it. In creating that writing community, I had to try and sell it to people—make it appealing and interesting and like something people would check out.

You know, marketing and such.

Amongst the various branding and logistical decisions I made, I included a single quote from Neil Gaiman to cap off the copywriting at the end of the page I used as the platform for finding new attendees. It’s a short, simple line that addresses one of the most elemental challenges faced by most writers:

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”

This is a very small anecdotal inclusion, especially amongst the others I’ve mentioned so far, but my point is this: Neil Gaiman has been in the nooks and crannies of my life for over a decade. I was never a monumental fan, but I still considered him one of my favorite authors, and have read at least half of his pretty extensive catalogue of stories. He had about as many fingerprints on my life as any parasocial relationship could.

So it’s with beleaguered grief and extreme frustration that his final fingerprint was a dragging smear of red.

II. The Long, Deep Sigh

You know what they say about your heroes.

At the time of this writing, Neil has been confronted by allegations from (*checks online to make sure there aren’t somehow even more updates*) eight women, per the BBC, regarding sexual misconduct of various forms. You’ve probably seen the Vulture article. It feels like everyone has. If you haven’t, you can read it here for free, as it goes into exhaustive detail about the nature of these allegations and the people they’ve effected. For the purposes of my article, I will only recount the broader details.

Please be cautious: the Vulture piece is rife with descriptions of very upsetting sexual content. You should not feel compelled to read it all.

In an era where it feels like, as a society, we’re starting to realize that jump-cutting to the hard and fast cancellation of a public figure is maybe not always the right call, this one is pretty indefensible. If even a tenth of the stuff put against Neil is true (I’m inclined to think it’s far more than that), it would be enough to forever blot out his sterling professional reputation.

You simply cannot recover a career after causing this much devastation to other people. Not without being a politician, at least.

I really, really wanted it to not be true. Not this time.

But it was, and is, and yeah, the man sexually assaulted multiple women. And seemed, by accounts, to be grooming his son to do the same to some degree.

A lot of people are very heartbroken about this. The rest are very, very angry, or a mixture of both. Maybe it’s because I constantly have social media and news outlets talking at me every day about how I should be incensed and infuriated by this, that, or the other thing, but I don’t have fury within me. Nor have I ever been the retributive type. So, no, I’m not going to join in the chorus of condemnation that would see him burn at the stake for his actions.

I believe all people who hurt others and fall from grace should at least have a chance to make things right (whether or not they succeed is predominantly for their victims to decide, not online mobs, even ones morally aligned with myself). That said, redemption is a series of acts that demands purging oneself of self-interest and pride—carving away at that sickness inside and striving to rectify situations that cannot be unbroken. It must be the most earnest thing you’ve ever done.

Whether or not Gaiman is capable of that…is not for us to know. At any rate, I do not want Neil Gaiman to die. I don’t want him to hurt or suffer as he’s caused hurt or suffering (though if he’s convicted of the allegations, as he likely will be, he should definitely do prison time). It is not within me to hate him.

My ideal circumstance is this: I want him to wash upon the shores of grief, beached by a tide that left nothing but the truest, most desperately apologetic and repentant version of himself that could possibly exist. I want him to earnestly beg for the forgiveness of those he did wrong by. They may not offer that forgiveness. That is their right. But he must make himself low, under the gravity of the realization of what he’s done.

Once all his glamor and good-will has bled away, and he’s come to terms with how his success/wealth ultimately destroyed him, and he’s made all the necessary reparations, Neil Gaiman should simply…disappear. That is the only path left to him with any dignity. Disappear, and never hurt anyone ever again. To not go the way of JK Rowling, constantly finding new ways to prove you were never worthy of our respect to begin with. Vanish.

This would not be justice for his victims. It would not undo the damage, or make him less of a monster. It would simply mark the ending of his time causing fresh, new harms.

It is not the reality I wish we were in, but that is what must happen. That is what should happen to anyone who thinks it is within their power and their right to impose themself on others, sexually or otherwise. That it was a man towards a woman is at once irrelevant, and yet of glaring, undeniable importance.

Of course they choose the bear.

III. Dammit

In addition to the predictable discourse following the wake of Neil Gaiman’s actions, there have also been bizarre and illuminating conversations as well.

Bizarre in that there are folks coming out of the woodwork who are suddenly very vocal about how they never liked Neil Gaiman. Always thought he was cringe, and creepy, and weird, and it’s so obvious he was problematic (virtually none of this discourse existed previously, certainly not in any major way). His writings are for pre-teens (which like…yeah, some of them. Children’s literature was one of the arenas of his career), and of course, he is just a bad writer and always has been.

Okay.

Sure.

This weird, retroactive reassessment of Neil Gaiman’s skill as a writer reeks of self-righteous aggrandizing. Even if you truly believed that all along (which is fine), the timing of such comments comes off as petty and ego-fueled. Your taste in storytelling is more refined, of course, and your perception of quality more morally positioned. You must let the world know this, as their hero goes down in flames. It is trite, cringe, and not within me to care beyond the end of this sentence.

I guess it’s not all that surprising, though. People have always gotten off on hating popular people and things. In this, I suppose the behavior is not as bizarre as I first implied.

(Edit from the future: the following few paragraphs address an accusation and creative comparison that has since proven not to hold much water. I will leave the section in for the sake of integrity, but it is a bit controversial and outdated at the time of this edit. You can read here for more information.)

As for the illuminating, I have since come into the knowledge of a book series called Tales from the Flat Earth by Tanith Lee. This is significant to address because Lee’s books, which preceded Gaiman’s The Sandman, is well…

It’s The Sandman. Neil Gaiman cribbed major swaths of his magnum opus wholesale from ideas found in Tales from the Flat Earth, making only minor alterations to distinguish his from the original work. There is a universe where this would have been fine. Namely, a universe where he acknowledges that he obviously did this, but we don’t live in that universe. Authors are allowed to riff on pre-established stories and use liberal amounts of inspiration from other creatives, but there’s a well-traveled rule around this practice: acknowledge the sources of those inspirations. Point people towards them, so fans who love your work can also love the things that inspired you to make that work.

Neil Gaiman did not do this, and so on top of almost certainly being an abuser (I use this roundabout language only because he hasn’t been formally convicted of anything, but let’s be real), he’s also a plagiarist, or something adjacent to one. He’s at the very least broken the social contract of professional decency. Unlike Tanith Lee herself, who cited One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales, as the central inspiration for Tales from the Flat Earth.

So it’s disappointment all the way down, and I haven’t even started talking about all the ways in which Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman’s wife, factors into this. I do not have the same degree of history with Palmer’s works and cannot speak on her in any meaningful way, so will instead refer you back to the Vulture article, which captures her crimes and betrayals as they relate to this situation in a way I never could.

In the spirit of honesty, as I wrap up this article, the next few paragraphs will lean on some insights my friend Daniel has shared on social media regarding the Gaiman situation. Daniel’s command of language and articulation of ideas frequently eclipses mine, so I’m going to momentarily borrow from that strength.

While there is much we could glean from the fallout of this situation, at it’s core is an abused power dynamic: a rich, highly-regarded older man with a lot of social clout, taking profane liberties with much younger, more vulnerable women, and then paying for their silence. When some of these women spoke out, the stories were either shut down or gained little traction, allowing the abuse to perpetuate.

“Believe women” is a good policy. Victims and potential victims deserve compassion, and to assume they must be lying just because there’s no hard proof is a callous and flawed stance. At the same time, automatically believing all women without challenge is equally problematic, as women are just as capable of narcissistic personality disorder and abuse as anybody else. Amanda Palmer.

It’s not easy to navigate this, but we can at least dismantle the system of default disbelief that keeps victims silent, and protects possible abusers.

It shouldn’t take the testimony of several victims to catch these guys. “Open secrets” are able to keep going uncontested because people know they will be punished for speaking up. We live in a world that, as it stands, does not believe victims until they have their abuse recorded on video.

As for what to do about Death of the Author*…

((*For any unfamiliar: Death of the Author is the idea that a piece of creative work is less informed by the artist’s intention/involvement, and more by what the consumer gets out of the experience. I.e. how important is it that the author was a piece of shit if the work they made changed our lives for the better?))

My stance is this: you are not a villain for purging Neil Gaiman (or any other known problematic persons) from your private library, but campaigning for him to be removed from public libraries and schools should not be considered. This is a whole other can of worms, but trying to hide the creative works of criminals is at once a misplaced priority, and a historically ineffectual one that largely serves to make those doing it feel righteous, while generally making the problem worse.

With near 100% certainty, some book, tv show, movie, comic, or video game you enjoy was created, at least partially, by someone committing reprehensible crimes and actions behind closed doors. They might be doing the same thing Neil did, or supporting flagrantly racist regimes, or actively propagating the exploitation of Earth’s natural resources. In this case, the only factor that determines whether you continue to enjoy that thing boils down to whether or not you know about the hidden actions of the creator. Something you love right now was made by someone who just hasn’t been caught.

You are entitled to your own standards of what you read/watch/play, and what you don’t. A “no known abusers” policy makes sense, but trying to separate art from artist is to quest for a purity that doesn’t exist. The unfortunate truth is that bad people can make good things. However, if someone cannot bring themselves to buy (and thus financially support) those that still live and benefit from sales, that is understandable.

We should always hold victims in higher importance than the entertainment they will impact. That said, it’s not always a clean cut-and-burn. The TV adaptation of The Sandman I mentioned earlier only has one season, but was greenlit for another. In light of all that has happened, we enter a morally precarious balancing act. Do we sacrifice the job opportunities of hundreds of other innocent people contributing to its creation, to exorcise Neil Gaiman from Hollywood? Do we punish the unknown saints for the crimes of the known darkness?

I don’t have a clean answer for this. I simply want to illuminate that, if the executives decide not to move forward, that is a fair place to land, and though there may be unfairness involved towards those who did nothing wrong, it is important that as an audience we do not exact fury against them. The completion of our entertainment does not override the justice deserved by the victims. (Note: I recognize executives might not renew it for far less noble reasons than these, and there are plenty of other reasons to dislike Hollywood executives).

We are not entitled to entertainment. But it would be a shame to see innocent people’s work and art undone. There are no real winners when a living abuser is involved and benefits. Both directions are losing outcomes.

Ultimately, there was no doubt that Neil Gaiman had some degree of darkness within him. This is neither surprising, nor unusual, for anyone who has spent enough time with people. We all have something, and when your job involves leaning on creative expression, part of that means exposing the shadowed parts of yourself to others. This can even be healthy and good.

But as for Gaiman and his future, it’s bleak. The darkness was denser than we’d believed, and of a different shape and texture. I hold out no hope for him to return to his former glory. Like I said before, there’s probably some prison time on his horizon (possibly for the rest of his life). His earnings should also, to some degree, be redistributed to his victims, however that might be possible. Whether that comes to pass or not, a sincere atonement must be enacted if he is to have any hope of leaving this world with a scrap of dignity or pride. Then he should fade from public awareness, and let those who do not know of his actions reclaim the good they can find in what he’s given to the world.

To let the stories exist upon their own merits, and hopefully leave positive fingerprints on those who find them, transcending the stain of Gaiman’s legacy.

That is the only meaningful path available now.