The Lonely City

Que signifie être seul ? Comment vivons-nous, si nous n'entretenons pas de lien intime avec un autre être humain ? Comment créer du lien avec les autres ? Lorsque Olivia Laing a déménagé à New York au milieu de la trentaine, la solitude est devenue son quotidien.
“Olivia Laing, in her new book, The Lonely City, picks up the topic of painful urban isolation and sets it down in many smart and oddly consoling places. She makes the topic her own… Perhaps the best praise I can give this book is to concur with Ms Laing’s dedication: ‘If you’re lonely, this one’s for you.’ ” – Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Fascinated by the experience, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving fluidly between works and lives – 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 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.

“Laing… is an observer, and that passivity lends the book a staggering emotional weight that’s both powerful and leaden. It’s a grey, overcast afternoon of a book, sometimes oppressively so… Her keen insights into Warhol’s ironic distance – or the new-wave singer Klaus Nomi’s operatic otherworldliness, or the science-fiction writer Samuel R. Delany’s sexual revelations – ring with poignant sympathy.” – Jason Heller, NPR

Humane, provocative and deeply moving, The Lonely City is about the spaces between people and the things that draw them together, about sexuality, mortality and the magical possibilities of art. It’s 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.