The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone [Paperback]

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism

#1 Book of the Year from Brain Pickings

Named a best book of the year by NPR,Newsweek, Slate, Pop Sugar,Marie Claire,Elle, PublishersWeekly, andLit Hub

A dazzling work of biography, memoir, and cultural criticism on the subject of loneliness, told through the lives of iconic artists, by the acclaimed author ofThe Trip to Echo Spring.

When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her midthirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by the most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving from Edward Hoppers Nighthawks to Andy Warhols Time Capsules, from Henry Dargers hoarding to David Wojnarowiczs AIDS activism, Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone, illuminating not only the causes of loneliness but also how it might be resisted and redeemed.

Humane, provocative, and moving,The Lonely Cityis a celebration of a strange and lovely state, adrift from the larger continent of human experience, but intrinsic to the very act of being alive.

CONTENTS

1 The Lonely City 3
2 Walls of Glass 11
3 My Heart Opens to Your Voice 47
4 In Loving Him 95
5 The Realms of the Unreal 135
6 At the Beginning of the End of the World 179
7 Render Ghosts 217
8 Strange Fruit 255

Notes 285
Bibliography 299
Acknowledgements 311
List of Illustrations 315

OLIVIA LAINGis a writer and critic. Her first book,To the River, was published by Canongate in the U.K. to wide acclaim and shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and the Dolman Travel Book of the Year. She has been the deputy books editor of theObserver, and writes for theGuardian,New Statesman, andGranta, among other publications. She is a MacDl“W