julesjb 's review for:

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

4.0

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The Lonely City was a great reading. I learnt so much about the artists Laing speaks about in the book (Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper, David Wojnarowicz, ect.) but, to be honest, I expected this memoir to be more about her loneliness and even though she sometimes talks about it, the book ends up more to be a memoir about theses artists, their childhood and how loneliness was a part of their existence, which was still fine by me. In this memoir, Olivia analyzes all the aspect of loneliness through the life of theses artists. A chapter that was really interesting was the one about how AIDS in the 80s could alienated people who had it and how these people were stigmatized in their daily life. Some parts of the book were more appealing than others but in the end, The Lonely City was very enlightening.