The Lonely City

Review

2nd read (Oct 21, 2022): I thought it would be fitting to reread this book after moving to NYC and before seeing an Edward Hopper exhibition at the Whitney. I felt like I enjoyed it for new reasons the second time around, particularly since I could locate the artists within the city.

1st read (Feb 16, 2020): I thought this book was solely a memoir, so its actual contents were unexpected to me, but I enjoyed learning about the lives and works of four different artists in New York City and the reflections on community, isolation, and history that accompanied them. I particularly liked looking at their artwork after I had learned more about the circumstances surrounding it, and enjoyed Hopper's the most.

Collapse, spread, merging, union: these things sound like the opposite of loneliness, and yet intimacy requires a solid sense of self to be successful and satisfying.