Are there any famous authors you suspect to be psychopaths?

stephen king?

Not exactly a psychopath, but Marcel Proust may qualify as a homopædosadist by nowadays' standards. (Not that it should distract from his literary merits.)

King?!? Hell no. He talks a lot about his feelings and his relationships with his wife&family in his nonfiction. He's a very likeable guy, actually. Very astute, with a killer sense of humour.

Tbh, I can't think of any writers who strike me as psychopathic. Isaac Asimov came across as a little aspie-ish. Hemingway was bipolar. So were Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Sylvia Plath. If I'm not mistaken, the latter had schizophrenic overtones.

If anything, authors like King who write about psychopaths strike me as people who have more than the usual levels of empathy/emotion, and other types of human awareness. Thomas Harris is a gifted storyteller, imo.

Sylvia Plath was a stereotypical borderline. V. Woolf was the bipolar/schizophrenic type.
Can't say much about S. King, never read him. (Nicholson in The Shining was good though, nevermind the ghastly carpet and the hysterical wife.)

I first thought of Nabokov when I saw the question, but I've never read Lolita and according to the descriptions on the internet, it sounds like he was pretty normal. Well he had synaesthesia and didn't care much for women, particularly women writers.

If there were psychopathic authors, wouldn't they be more likely to write business or self-help books (such as Vaknin)? I think there's greater chance to earn wealth and power and become a 'guru' in nonfiction, at least in modern times.

Platypus wrote:I first thought of Nabokov when I saw the question, but I've never read Lolita and according to the descriptions on the internet, it sounds like he was pretty normal. Well he had synaesthesia and didn't care much for women, particularly women writers.

If there were psychopathic authors, wouldn't they be more likely to write business or self-help books (such as Vaknin)? I think there's greater chance to earn wealth and power and become a 'guru' in nonfiction, at least in modern times.

It was only a matter of time before someone mentioned Vaknin...

I take it you don't like SP, Wooster.

I didn't know Virginia Woolf was bipolar. (I must have slept through that class ) That makes sense, tho. She had a lovely way of turning her words inside out. I always liked her imagery.

Nabokov was just a bit of a dick. That doesn't make him sociopathic. I've been meaning to read Lolita for awhile now. I heard it was a hilarious spoof on whiny pedophiles.

Authors - can't recall any (I don't read much), but the goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini was said to be a certified one. (Awesome workmanship tho.)

What a second, shouldn't authors on how to get rich quick, or religious leaders, technically be sociopaths?

Like Tony Robbins, or Ron Hubbard, or maybe Timothy Ferriss, author of the 4 hour work week.

Fiction writers, imaginatarians, omg deja vu... I mean where does one draw the line on psychopaths and sociopaths anyways...

pinkluver101105 wrote:It was only a matter of time before someone mentioned Vaknin...

That's probably the way he wanted it.

But don't ya think that's the sort of writing or business model a psychopath would be more likely to create? I can't see a psychopath attempting to write the next great novel and putting up with poverty and manuscript rejections in the meantime. Too much work for too little reward. Plus novels tend to tug at our heartstrings, which might pose a greater challenge to the psychopath than 'let me explain it to you' nonfiction.
However, I could imagine a psychopath might pretend to be an underappreciated and unpublished novelist in order to leech off a naive benefactor or lover. Some people are a sucker for the tormented artist persona.