The Lonely City

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, Publishers Weekly, and Lit 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 of The Trip to Echo Spring. When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks to Andy Warhol's Time Capsules, from Henry Darger's hoarding to David Wojnarowicz's AIDS activism, Laing conducts an electrifying 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 City is 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.

Olivia Laing is a writer and a critic. They have written several books, including The Silver Book, The Lonely City, Everybody: A Book About Freedom, and the Sunday Times number one bestseller The Garden Against Time. Laing's first novel, Crudo, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and in 2018 they were awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction. Their books have been translated into twenty-one languages.

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