I was expecting a totally different book. A book about loneliness as a modern growing symptom of our "social network" society. However the book is about loneliness as a synonym for cities. An almost one to one relationship between the crowded avenues and parks of New York and the solitude of the individual walking in it. Laing explores the life of some well known artists living in the extravagant gayscene of New York in the seventies. She shows that the "pain of others" in the words of Susan Sontag leads to the realisation that being alone does not mean that you have failed but that you are alive.

I like the book and although I do hardly recognise the surroundings I recognise some of the feelings. Living alone for many years in Port-au-Prince, Manilla and Kathmandu I came to realise for myself that being member of social groups (in my case churches, unknown people in my neighbourhood and friends) give the necessary backbone structure to life. And I always felt alone and lucky. Laing finishes with "what matters is kindness; what matters is solidarity" and I couldn't agree more.

this was a pleasant surprise. while i enjoyed the meditations on loneliness and explorations of various new york based artists, i fell head over heels for olivia laings writing. there are entire pages i ended up highlighting and rereading and posting on social media because i felt like they were not just beautiful but necessary. i was really floored by laings mastery of prose, her complex vocabulary challenging yet not alienating to me. her vocabulary choices were unique but reflective of a writer who also reads a tremendous amount of everything.

perhaps in the hands of a lesser artist, laings reflections on various other lonely souls would have come off as cheap sentimentality or fake deep. before i picked up the book, i went in totally blind with the exception of a few quotes that sounded absolutely fantastic. i had no idea it was actually marketing itself as a memoir so its been a little surprising reading other reviewers calling it that. i quite like how laings own personal conflicts and history became springboards for discussing artists and larger social issues. for some reason it evoked my favorite quote of all time:

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

james baldwin really spoke to a certain kind of alienated person who is unable to find connection with those around them until they open a book and they find out they were never alone the entire time. this has very much been my own experience, and reading laing using her own experiences almost as a framing mechanism to discuss other artists was absolutely delightful. its almost too clever for its own good.

the lonely city has been one of my favorite experiences reading in a very long time. laing maintains a professional emotional distance even when talking about how she ended up in new york. she doesnt go into details about her partner or why the relationship fell through, but she describes her tears pouring out of her eyes while exploring archives and museums. her personal conflict is almost an afterthought to the whole book because her loneliness is like anyone elses loneliness despite their radically different causes.

by far my favorite parts of the book were her writings on david wojnarowicz and andy warhol. wojnarowiczs sections were painfully beautiful and tragic. i felt overwhelmed with emotion reading about him in particular. laing has a knack for writing about people so vividly that you feel you know them. she does this so well that i found myself actually reconsidering my hatred of andy warhol. in fact, i had previously panned and dismissed valerie solanas too as a proto TERF but im planning on giving the scum manifesto another read. solanas deserves more consideration as simply an irrational and cruel woman and i wouldve never been moved to reread her work if i hadnt read the lonely city.

olivia laing has sparked something inside me that has long lain dormant. i am excited about my art now, inspired to explore the hidden worlds inside me not because i have no choice but because that is my way to connect with others. as james baldwin had shown me with reading, laing has shown me through art that i could not be truly lonely if i tried.

Laing writes so fluidly. I had a hard time putting this down once started. Her attempts at understanding art and the way she describes and gives them space is wonderful. Tying multiple artists from multiple eras and mediums in with her own experience with loneliness and being in New York, following Hopper through to the AIDS epidemic is astonishing and wonderful, sad and beautiful. A very well done Art-Biography-Memoir.

Brilliant! Review very soon!