Do we seek authorial greatness?

The following lines are excerpted from Charles McGrath's New York Times Book Review of Muriel Spark:  The Biography (Martin Stannard, W.W. Norton):

Reading between the lines of Stannard's book, one concludes that like a lot of great writers, Spark was actually a bit of a monster—a charming, appealing monster but a monster all the same, willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of her work.  She was a neglectful mother; a mercurial and inconstant friend who 'went through people like pieces o...