This Exquisite Loneliness: What Loners, Outcasts, and the Misunderstood Can Teach Us about Creativity

"...Rich and sensitive." --The Wall Street Journal "Loneliness is everywhere these days. But this book will chase some of it away, and maybe replace it with connection." --Patton Oswalt, Emmy and Grammy winning comic A examination of the life and work of six brilliant minds of the twentieth century, intent on answering the question "What can be done not despite but because of loneliness?" At an unprecedented rate, loneliness is moving around the globe--from self-isolating technology and political division to community decay and social fragmentation--and yet it is not a feeling to which we readily admit. It is stigmatized, freighted with shame and fear, and easy to dismiss as mere emotional neediness. But what if instead of shying away from loneliness, we embraced it as something we can learn from and as something that will draw us closer to one another? In This Exquisite Loneliness, Richard Deming turns an eye toward that unwelcome feeling, both in his own experiences and the lives o