I think many readers would do well to remember this, or maybe to realize it for the first time, especially when it comes to the books and authors they most deeply cherish, and most especially when those authors have led very public lives as celebrities and have come to be felt and regarded as close personal presences and even friends:

“To maintain a private life under scrutiny, literary celebrities often attempt to shelter themselves behind their chosen personas, whereas other celebrities more often resort to bodyguards and lawyers. The literary persona can be understood as a decoy offered to the public; it can appease the public’s desire for a compelling entertainment by providing an illusion of personal access. The closer the scrutiny, however, and the more success depends on the revelation of biography, the closer the persona must come to the private life. To renegotiate this development, the celebrity can make the persona ‘larger than life.’”

—Joel Deshaye, “Celebrity and the Poetic Dialogue of Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen,” Studies in Canadian Literature 34, no. 2 (2009)