On Loneliness

Loneliness is presented as a paradoxically universal human experience in this intimate photography collection from the School of Life, an organization devoted to promoting self-understanding (after On Divorce). In text that runs alongside expressive close-ups and portraits, subjects muse on what it means to feel alone: Emm stares out of a rainy window and describes the isolation that comes with multiple sclerosis, a mostly invisible illness, while Mayas, who’s wearing a red headscarf and standing in a foggy suburban street, comments on being a refugee in a world where “we don’t have names; we’re just abstract statistics.” Cora, who faces away from the camera, gives voice to the wrenching sense of loneliness in a marriage—“we move around the house to avoid each other.... I think he must be aware of it.” Glimmers of hope appear throughout: after being diagnosed with autism, Kate discovered she had “more in common with others than I had thought, now that I don’t mask my true self as much”; the brief introduction frames loneliness as a uniquely shared experience and a reminder to “hold out a hand to our similarly tortured, kind, beautiful and complicated neighbors.” It’s a heartbreaking yet hopeful window into a painful part of being alive. (Nov.)