Description
Alone in the city — an exquisite meditation. The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone is Olivia Laing’s luminous exploration of urban loneliness: what it means to be alone in New York, examined through the lives and works of artists who made isolation their subject — Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, David Wojnarowicz, Henry Darger.
Part memoir, part art criticism, part cultural history, Laing weaves her own solitary Manhattan year — newly arrived, newly single, adrift — with brilliant readings of her subjects: Hopper’s windows, Warhol’s tape recorder, Wojnarowicz’s rage and tenderness, Darger’s private worlds. The result finds strange company in solitude itself, arguing that loneliness, honestly faced, can become a form of attention — even of love.
Beautiful, humane, and quietly profound, this is essential for art lovers and city dwellers alike — a book that makes loneliness feel less lonely, and solitude feel like a kind of companionship.
What does it mean to be lonely? In The Lonely City, acclaimed British writer Olivia Laing asks that question from the heart of New York City, where she arrived alone in her mid-thirties and found herself adrift in the loneliest crowd on earth. Instead of retreating, she went looking for company in art — and found it in the lives of four artists who knew loneliness intimately.
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Moving from Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks to Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, from Henry Darger’s hoarded manuscripts to David Wojnarowicz’s harrowing existence on the city’s margins, Laing weaves memoir, biography, and art criticism into a profound meditation on isolation and creativity. She shows how loneliness shaped these artists’ greatest work — and how art itself can become a bridge between isolated souls.
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Lyrical, humane, and deeply consoling, The Lonely City is essential reading for anyone who has ever felt alone in a crowded room — a book that turns the shame of loneliness into something shared, understood, and strangely beautiful.
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