In their genre-spanning new books, Daniel Mendelsohn (Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate) and Alex Ross (Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music) tell colorful stories around four famous historical figures: the exiled writers Erich Auerbach, François Fénelon, and W. G. Sebald, and the composer Richard Wagner. Grappling with their subjects’ complicated legacies, Mendelsohn and Ross’s books lean into the complexity of these artists’ lives. We turn to artists for unique insights; those insights, we find, only reveal more questions.

• Moderator: Clay Smith

Daniel Mendelsohn, Alex Ross, Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate, Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music