This Exquisite Loneliness

Starred review from August 1, 2023

Deming's (creative writing, Yale; Art of the Ordinary) book is a powerful study of loneliness as both a creative catalyst and a potentially dangerous, damaging facet of those perceived to be loners, outcasts, and misunderstood. The book opens with the author's visceral response to learning about Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death by suicide and moves through personal reflections that read like meditations about isolation and depression. Readers may find that the book's descriptions of the pain that comes with these feelings and experiences are far greater and more complex than any quick solution. Chapters delve into a research-driven study of loneliness as an intertwined problem and possibility. The author argues that loneliness engenders powerful creativity, which often paradoxically brings others together as viewers of films, readers of books, and others who vicariously experience it. VERDICT Written in a way that evokes various emotions and as a carefully documented inquiry into historical, literary, and psychological explorations of the loneliness, this important book will likely inspire readers to think about the walls people build to protect themselves and how to forge meaningful connections.--Emily Bowles

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2023
An attempt to understand isolation through a blend of memoir, biography, and a history of the emotion itself. "I believe we must reinvent loneliness in order to survive it. I have been trying to do this my whole life," writes Deming, director of creative writing at Yale and author of Art of the Ordinary. In 2021, a Harvard study found that 36% of adults "described themselves as experiencing 'serious loneliness' " In young adults 18-25, the percentage was even higher: a "staggering" 63%. Despite its purported ability to provide human connection, the internet has been increasingly shown to exacerbate feelings of loneliness. Meanwhile, the emotion remains heavily stigmatized and difficult to discuss. The feeling, however, is nothing new, and Deming traces the lives of six figures whose lives were shaped largely by their feelings of seclusion. They include psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, writer Zora Neale Hurston, photojournalist Walker Evans, philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin, expressionist painter Egon Schiele, and Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. Throughout his study of these artists, Deming interweaves descriptions of his own struggles with loneliness, as well as its previous manifestation as addiction. The question, in all cases, is what can be done with isolation: Is it useful, or even necessary, to experience loneliness in order to create memorable art? The author ably navigates the timely and poignant concern of how to manage "the dailiness of contemporary isolation," though the mini-biographies are too brief to create a lasting momentum. Still, the examples combine to create a fuller picture of how the emotion can be used creatively. This is an uplifting book that provides a blueprint on how to manage such a common yet challenging emotion, and Deming's personal experiences add necessary heft to the text. The author charts a navigable course for embracing one of the most painful and universal human emotions.

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August 28, 2023
In these inspired meditations, Deming (Art of the Ordinary), a poet and the director of creative writing at Yale University, ruminates on how loneliness influences creativity. “I believe we must reinvent loneliness in order to survive it,” he writes, exploring how photographer Walker Evans, novelist Zora Neale Hurston, psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, painter Egon Schiele, and Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling “forged insights and perspectives in the cold fires of loneliness.” Klein drew from her grief over the childhood deaths of her sister and brother when she theorized in “On the Sense of Loneliness,” an essay written in her final years, that the feeling is an escapable constant throughout life sometimes made more acute by the early loss of a parent or sibling. Deming’s penetrating analysis illustrates how artists’ personal lives inform their art, as when he suggests Serling, who struggled with feelings of isolation after moving to Hollywood, made television out of a desire to forge connections with viewers and help them, and himself, feel less alone. The lucid prose is matched by the depth of insight: “Art in general felt, feels, to me like evidence of other people’s searching for their own meaningfulness, as if they were calling over from their own lost valleys.” Profound and often achingly beautiful, this makes for great company.

September 8, 2023
This is, gloriously, not a quick read. What author Deming manages to do within these pages will often leave the reader pausing to take in the rare majesty of reading about a subject, indeed two subjects, that generally defy description. Deming frames his study around six notable figures, ranging from photographer Walker Evans to writer Zora Neale Hurston to Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, examining how loneliness--not simply being isolated, but that entirely acute permanence of being lonely--may have diminished their quality of life overall, yet also contributed to their enduring creative outputs. Intermingled throughout are Deming's stories of how loneliness has worked to eventuate his own life, including his battle with addiction. Beyond biography and cultural study, This Exquisite Loneliness is a book that gives rich voice to both the agony and occasional joy of a unique facet of the human experience. Insightful in its reflections, keen readers will find much to contemplate.

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