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The lonely city : adventures in the art of being alone / Olivia Laing.

by Laing, Olivia

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Artists -- Psychology.

City and town life -- Psychological aspects.

9781250039576 (hc.)

First U.S. edition.

315 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 285-310).

"A work of memoir, biography and cultural criticism on the subject of loneliness, told through the lives of six iconic artists, by the author of The Trip to Echo Spring. What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live, if we're not intimately engaged with another human being? How do we connect with other people? Does technology trap us behind screens? 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 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 investigation into what it means to be alone. 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. 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 the author of To the River and The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking."--Provided by publisher.

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