OLIVIA LAING is 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 the Observer, and writes for the Guardian, New Statesman, and Granta, among other publications. She is a MacDowell and Yaddo Fellow, and the 2014 Writer in Residence at the British Library. Her critically acclaimed book, The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking, is published by Picador
"A beautiful meander of a book" --Hanya Yanagihara, The New Yorker
"An extraordinary more-than-memoir; a sort of memoir-plus-plus,
partway between Helen MacDonald's H Is for Hawk and the diary of
Virginia Woolf." --Maria Popova "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
"This book serves as both provocation and comfort, a secular prayer
for those who are alone--meaning all of us."--The New York Times
Book Review "One of the finest writers of the new
non-fiction...compelling and original."--Harper's Bazaar "An
uncommonly observant hybrid of memoir, history and cultural
criticism... a book of extraordinary compassion and insight."--San
Francisco Chronicle "Laing is an astute and consistently surprising
culture critic who deeply identifies with her subjects'
vulnerabilities... absolutely one of a kind."--Maureen Corrigan,
NPR's Fresh Air "It's not easy to pull off switching between
criticism and confession--and like Echo Spring, The Lonely City is
an impressive and beguiling combination of autobiography and
biography, a balancing act that Laing effortlessly performs. Her
gift as a critic is her ability to imaginatively sympathize with
her subject in a way that allows the art and life of the artist to
go on radiating meaning after the book is closed."--Elle "...A
lovely thing. Exceptionally skillful at changing gears, Ms. Laing
moves fluently between memoir, biography (not just of her principal
cast but of a large supporting one), art criticism and the fruits
of her immersion in 'loneliness studies'...She writes about Darger
and the rest with insight and empathy and about herself with a
refreshing lack of exhibitionism....Every page of The Lonely City
exudes a disarming, deep-down fondness for humanity. "--The Wall
Street Journal
"Laing's prose is elegant and concise, with a breath of Joan
Didion.... In its interdisciplinary scope and mix of culture,
theory, and memoir, The Lonely City brings to mind other nonfiction
hits of recent years, books like Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts or
Leslie Jamison's The Empathy Exams."--The Millions "The Lonely City
bristles with heart-piercing wisdom... It's a ghostly blueprint of
urban loneliness -- an emotion that Laing calls 'a city in
itself'--that reminds us how loneliness can sometimes bring us
together."--Jason Heller, NPR.org "Laing's meditation gradually
gathers force into a manifesto, taking aim at the assumption of
simple, unknowable 'mental illness' to explain the life and
creative work of the outsider artist Henry Darger or of Solanas--or
of Warhol, for that matte...Without glamorizing either loneliness
or the urban decay of New York in the '70s, The Lonely City builds
an impassioned case for difficulty and difference, for social
rebellion and the unpredictable artistic richness that can
result."--The Washington Post "Laing, who used group biography to
examine the connections between alcoholism and literature in The
Trip to Echo Spring, here performs an almost magical trick:
Reminding us of how it feels to be lonely, this book gently affirms
our connectedness."--The Boston Globe "Laing is always circling
back toward a piercingly relevant observation. And, oh, those
observations! ... Laing is a great critic, not least because she
understands that art can and often does manifest multiple
conflicting meanings and desires at once."--Laura Miller, Slate
"Laing writes with a compassion and curiosity rarely seen in any
genre...Although I read The Lonely City in the same urban spaces
that usually impart a familiar loneliness--loud caf�s, quiet
apartments and slow trains choked with strangers--I felt different
while reading it....Something surprising happened, something Laing
most likely intended"--The Rumpus "A singular, fiercely candid and
rare book."--The Buffalo News
"[An] acute, nervy and personal investigation into urban
solitude....[Laing] writes with lyrical clarity, empathy, and a
knack for taking a wandering, edgy path, stretching themes (and
genres), while never losing an underlying urgency....A group
biography all in one, which takes a difficult, almost taboo,
subject and deftly turns it over anew."--New Statesman
"Luminously wise and deeply compassionate, The Lonely City is a
fierce and essential work. Laing is a masterful biographer,
memoirist and critic. Fearlessly tracing the roots of loneliness,
its forbidding consequences, and its complicated and beautiful
relationship with art, it is powerful, poignant and magical.
Reading it made my heart ache yet filled me with hope for the
world."--Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk "[Laing] is a
brave writer whose books, in their different ways, open up
fundamental questions about life and art...What's startling is that
her book succeeds in offering its readers a redemptive experience
comparable to the one she's describing. Reading it at a lonely
moment, I found that I responded easily to the confident
muscularity of her prose and the intimate way she described
emotional states. I became swiftly less lonely as I did so, earthed
by the company of Wojnarowicz, Warhol and Laing herself....This
triumphant book is in part an appeal for us to value the kind of
loneliness that can be rendered, by the intimacy of art, both
tolerable and shareable."--The Daily Telegraph (London) "[An]
imaginative and poignant quest....Through her ardent research,
empathetic response, original thought, courageous candor, and
exquisite language, Laing joins the ever-growing pool of
writers--among them Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hope Jahren, Jhumpa Lahiri,
Leslie Jamison, Helen Macdonald, Sally Mann, Patti Smith, Tracy K.
Smith, Edmund de Waal, and Terry Tempest Williams--who are
transforming memoir into a daring and dynamic literary form of
discovery that laces the stories of individuals into the continuum
of humanity and the larger web of life on Earth to provocative and
transforming effect."--Booklist (starred review) "By focusing on
four artists...Laing's writing becomes expansive, exploring their
biographies, sharing art analysis, and weaving in observations from
periods of desolation that was at times "cold as ice and clear as
glass." She invents new ways to consider how isolation plays into
art or even the Internet (which turns her into an obsessed
teenager, albeit one who calls the screen her 'cathected silver
lover'). For once, loneliness becomes a place worth
lingering."--Publishers Weekly "[An] absorbing melding of memoir,
biography, art essay, and philosophical meditation...[An]
illuminating, enriching book."--Kirkus Reviews "A remarkable
combination of personal mediation and psychological and artistic
inquiry, The Lonely City is always superbly written, fascinating
and often sharply moving. Ultimately the book has a paradoxical
effect: at the same time as it makes one aware of one's own
inescapable solitude, it leaves one feeling less alone."--Adam
Foulds, author of In the Wolf's Mouth "An extraordinary
more-than-memoir; a sort of memoir-plus-plus, partway between Helen
MacDonald's H Is for Hawk and the diary of Virginia Woolf; a
lyrical account of wading through a period of self-expatriation,
both physical and psychological, in which Laing paints an intimate
portrait of loneliness.... The Lonely City is a layered and
endlessly rewarding book, among the finest I have ever read."
- Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
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