Olivia Laing on Art, Solitude, and The Lonely City at 10 (Part Two)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Intelligence Squared – Olivia Laing on Art, Solitude, and The Lonely City at 10 (Part Two)

Release Date: July 18, 2026
Host: Charlie Porter
Guest: Olivia Laing

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Episode Overview

This episode marks the 10th anniversary of "The Lonely City" by Olivia Laing, reflecting on its enduring impact, its exploration of loneliness and art, and the transformations in Laing’s personal and creative life since its publication. The discussion charts the initial release, the book’s reception, themes of solitude and connection, Laing's evolving understanding of trans identity, and audience reflections. The conversation is candid, philosophical, and full of insight into the relationship between creativity, loneliness, and political context.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Publication & Impact of "The Lonely City"

• Initial Emotions & Expectations
  • Laing recalls a mix of excitement and relief as the book approached publication, especially after settling on a cover that felt tender rather than “noir, cold, urban loneliness” ([02:13]).
  • She was surprised by the book’s ability to forge unexpected connections and friendships, describing how the book “brought people into my life that have become my closest friends... a sense that it connected with people. It brought conversations my way, it brought encounters my way. And I wasn’t anticipating any of that” ([03:33]).
• Reception & Ongoing Relevance
  • The book was not initially a bestseller but grew via word-of-mouth, especially as it found audiences in unexpected languages and regions ([04:28]).
  • Laing describes the text as a “pivot point,” discovering her own writing style and opening doors (notably, writing for Frieze), calling it “a life-changing book in a way that I really wasn’t anticipating” ([05:06]).

2. Identity, Tenderness, and Queer Community

• Personal Transformation
  • While writing, Laing was coming into a deeper understanding of herself as a trans person:
    “Other people maybe didn’t notice that bit. But...my life divided there...what came my way was Queer community, which is what I’d grown up inside and sort of came back to. So, yeah, it was transformative in sort of multiple different levels” ([05:48]).
• On Being Open about Transness
  • Porter notes Laing’s clarity regarding trans identity but also the societal difficulty in acknowledging it, likening it to how people can’t face what is clear in Warhol’s works ([06:26]).
  • Laing reflects: “I felt like I was making this massive revelation. And then it was sort of strange to realize some people weren’t hearing it... I think it is that we’re talking in different kinds of codes and there was a readership who could hear that” ([07:07]).

3. Loneliness: Acceptance, Writing, and Wisdom

• Writing as Regulation and Company
  • Laing contrasts the chaos of difficult feelings to the calmness of writing:
    “The process of writing is a kind of calmness. It is a kind of, you know, emotional regulation. And then I think that’s the thing that goes out into the world...it requires a kind of calmness” ([07:38]).
• Not Offering Patent Solutions
  • She never wanted the book to claim loneliness could be “solved”:
    “I didn’t want to escape. I wanted it to end in a sense of I’m still—and it’s okay to be here...it’s okay to feel difficult feelings” ([08:23]).
• Philosophy of Presence
  • Laing’s engagement with Buddhism (esp. Pema Chödrön) informed her focus on being present with discomfort:
    “Spirituality isn’t being somewhere else ever. It’s not about chasing down feel good states. It’s about inhabiting the reality of where you are and then watching it change like weather” ([09:38]).

4. Audience Q&A Highlights

• Does Laing Still Experience Loneliness? ([11:52])
  • “Yes, absolutely. And maybe it feels slightly less frightening now. But...the experience of loneliness is that it is frightening... There’s a sort of long-term strand of loneliness that’s just about wanting to take internal experiences… and put them in the form of a book and send them out into the world in the hope that they make sense to somebody. And I think that level of loneliness is just always, always there. And that I have definitely become more friendly with.”
• Artists That Would Be Included If Written Today ([13:27])
  • Laing mentions regrets about not including Frank O’Hara, and reflects on how the book’s tone and content would be dramatically different given political changes. She also references Pasolini as a subject in her new work.
• Genre-Defying Nature of the Book ([15:06])
  • Anecdote from audience about finding the book in the travel section, and Laing’s take: her books cross and resist traditional genre boundaries, and she’s grateful for booksellers’ role in the text’s success.
• Longevity of Icons & Changing Perspective with Age ([22:02])
  • Laing reflects on living beyond the age of many of her subjects, like Wojnarowicz and Jarman, and the evolving way their work is seen and celebrated.
• Could “The Lonely City” Be Written in Another City? ([24:46])
  • “Every city has its loneliness narrative... There could have been a Berlin version...I could have assembled a cast for any of them. So it really was happenstance that I was in New York and I set up this group of people who were in New York, and I used the city. But every city has its set of artists who you could tell that narrative with. And it’s very painful to me to not be able to do all of them.”
• Writing about Politics Through Art ([26:07])
  • Art is the material through which Laing addresses politics:
    “It feels to me like the most straightforward, the most urgent, the most basic way of doing it... There isn’t a political and an art... There aren’t these separate domains. There isn’t, you know, the personal and the political. These things intermesh all the time. And what I’m interested in is the places where they meet and where you can really drill into how global themes affect individual lives and how individual lives affect global currents.”
• On Dissociation and Collage ([28:27])
  • Laing:
    “The book ends with this whole long riff about collage making and glue... The sense of art is this way... of making things that feel in pieces have a sense of wholeness, but a sense of wholeness that’s still pieced together... For me, the book was absolutely a way in which I could contain broken parts in something that was coherent and whole, but not unbroken at the same time.”
• Memory and Writing’s Transformative Power ([30:30])
  • Laing describes the rawness of those New York memories and how the act of writing—while hard—brought pleasure and containment to what was an uncontainable emotional time.

5. Memorable Quotes

• “I think that's the thing that's been really astounding about it is over the last 10 years, meeting all of these people who caught the bat squeak.” (Olivia Laing, [04:23])
• “A lot of those feelings are political... It's okay to feel them. It's safe to feel them. You know, that sort of Winnicott style model of just making room around things and not panicking and needing to escape those things.” (Olivia Laing, [08:23])
• “I didn't want to send the sort of box of chaos. In a way you want to attest to it. But also it requires a kind of calmness.” (Olivia Laing, [07:38])
• “That's my wisdom. Uplifting.” (Olivia Laing, after a candid reflection on accepting that sometimes "we feel like shit." [10:42])

6. Powerful Closing Passage (Read Aloud)

([32:12])

“There are so many things that art can't do. It can't bring the dead back to life. It can't mend arguments between friends or cure AIDS or haunt the place of climate change. All the same, it does have some extraordinary functions... It does have a capacity to create intimacy. It does have a way of healing wounds, and better yet, of making it apparent that not all wounds need healing. Not all scars are ugly. If I sound adamant, it is because I'm speaking from personal experience...”
“I don't believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone. Not necessarily. I think it's about too learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion which can and should be resisted.”
“What matters is kindness. What matters is solidarity. What matters is staying alert, staying open. Because if we know anything from what has gone before us, it is that the time for feeling will not last.”

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Notable Timestamps

• Discussion Begins: [01:58]
• Creative Process and Book's Reception: [02:13]–[05:26]
• Queer Community and Personal Transformation: [05:48]–[07:07]
• Politics of Loneliness & Writing: [07:38]–[09:38]
• Audience Q&A: [11:40]–[31:56]
• Reading of Book’s Final Passage: [32:12]–[36:04]

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Tone & Style

The conversation balances deep philosophical reflection with moments of humor and warmth. Laing’s language is thoughtful yet accessible, with a clear aim to demystify loneliness and encourage compassion—towards oneself and others. Charlie Porter, as host, steers the discussion with sensitivity and curiosity.

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Summary

This episode is a thoughtful meditation on a decade of "The Lonely City," exploring how loneliness, art, and identity interweave. Laing’s reflections offer comfort without false hope, emphasizing the dignity of all feelings, the texture of lived experience, and the importance of community, art, and political awareness. For listeners and readers alike, Laing’s invitation to inhabit discomfort with gentleness, to honor individuality alongside solidarity, and to trust in art’s connective power, resonates as both timely and timeless.

Transcript

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[Olivia Laing]

where great minds meet. I'm senior producer Mia Sorrenti. What does it mean to be lonely in a world that has never been more connected? In this episode, we return for part two of our recent live event with writer and critic Olivia Lange. Lange joined us recently at Union Chapel to discuss loneliness, intimacy and the search for connection. They were in conversation with writer and critic Charlie Porter. If you haven't heard part one, we recommend jumping back an episode to catch up. But now let's return to the conversation live at Union Chapel in London.

[Charlie Porter]

Can you think back to the time when the book came out? How did it feel in the run up? Like, how did you feel about it? How did you feel about talking to people about it? What was it like?

[Olivia Laing]

I think it's really hard to remember that. I think I felt really excited. This was the original cover and we spent a long time, me and Jenny Lord, who's also here, who is my editor on the book, trying to get the COVID right because we didn't want it to be a cliched sort of noir, cold, urban loneliness. Harsh. We wanted it to convey a tenderness. And I think once we settled on this image that it felt like the book was going into the world. Correct. And I think that's always a big relief for me when I feel like the narrative of the book is right. And then it was incredibly exciting to have the reception. Can we say how we met?

[Charlie Porter]

Yeah.

[Olivia Laing]

So Charlie and I actually met because he interviewed me for the Lonely City in the cafe.

[Charlie Porter]

In the cafe now closed.

[Olivia Laing]

Which is now closed, sadly.

[Charlie Porter]

I was sent this proof by Jenny. She was like, I think you should read this. And I was like, oh, my God. And at the time, I was kind of doing an off and on, what I think you call a blog that wasn't really a blog, but it was a thing. And so we just met and talked and I came with a book with a lot of fallen out. There were like 5 million different books.

[Olivia Laing]

Yeah, it did have a lot of. But that. So the reason I'm sort of bringing that up is because I think what I didn't anticipate, but what absolutely happened, is that the book brought people into my life that have become my closest friends. Chantelle as well, Charlie. But also a sense that it connected with people. It brought conversations my way, it brought encounters my way. And I wasn't anticipating any of that. I think I thought I'd write it and then, you know, it would be on a shelf in a bookshop, but I'd forgotten that it in turn, like the Wojnarowicz things, has its little. Little bat squeak frequency. And I think that's the thing that's been really astounding about it is over the last 10 years, meeting all of these people who caught the bat squeak.

[Charlie Porter]

Yeah. At what point could you tell that something was happening with it? Like, was it like.

[Olivia Laing]

I totally can't remember. I mean, it was never, like. It wasn't in bestseller lists. It got good reviews. But I think. I really think it was a few years before it became clear that. Hang on, it's still. It was being translated into lots of languages and it was translated into, like, Arabic and Chinese and Russian and, you know, places that I wasn't necessarily expecting would have an audience for it. Yeah.

[Charlie Porter]

And it opened things up because, like you say, it then opened up art writing for you. Right. It then opened up other possibilities. It's like this kind of real pivot point.

[Olivia Laing]

It's a total pivot point because I think I finally worked out how I wanted to write, what sort of writing I wanted to be doing in the world. And, yeah, it brought. I mean, then Frieze got in touch, and then I started writing about art for Frieze. So it really. It was A life changing book in a way that I really wasn't anticipating.

[Charlie Porter]

Yeah. And it's also a book that's very particular to a time. Right. I mean, it is this because the circumstances of the book happening were kind of like this horror. But actually to be in New York at that time, it was also amazing to experience New York at that time. Right. I mean, you couldn't do it now, could you?

[Olivia Laing]

And it was. Yeah, it was. But also I think it was a real. You know, I was just figuring myself out as a trans person at the point that I was writing it in a way that I think every trans person who's ever read it subsequently has been like, oh, you were figuring yourself out as a trans person. But other people maybe didn't notice that bit. But that sense of. Right. My life. Yeah, there's another level which is my life divided there, that I didn't want to go down the route that I'd maybe been heading down. And what came my way was Queer community, which is what I'd grown up inside and sort of came back to. So, yeah, it was transformative in sort of multiple different levels.

[Charlie Porter]

Right. And it's been fascinating that, like, you very clearly say that you are trans and that you describe trans as not transitioning, you say in the text, but it's this in between, this very clear paragraph. But as you say, it's not a memoir, so it's not. You're never going to go. Deeply revealing stuff. But you say it there very clearly. And yet five years later, people are still kind of. You're trans. Like, it's like, it's almost like the way you did it was so clear, almost like Warhol, like people can't face. People can't face what's in front of them.

[Olivia Laing]

I think so. And I think also I felt like I was making this massive revelation. And then it was sort of strange to realize some people weren't hearing it, but I think it is that we're talking in different kinds of codes and there was a, you know, readership who could hear that. And that was wonderful for me that, yeah, it's both ways, the relationship between reader and writer.

[Charlie Porter]

And I'm sure also then wonderful for readers too, to have actually such thinking, such clarity, but also such kind of calm clarity and thinking.

[Olivia Laing]

And that's the thing about writing, about difficult experiences is the feelings are chaotic, painful and inchoate, resistant to language, unformed. And yet the process of writing is a kind of calmness. It is a kind of, you know, emotional regulation. And then I think that's the thing that goes out into the world. You don't want to send the sort of box of chaos. In a way you want to attest to it. But also it requires a kind of calmness.

[Charlie Porter]

Yeah. I think one of the things that's extraordinary about the book is this sense that we're held in this state of like a till, like safe in this till. And so we can all kind of be a bit. A bit uneasy,

[Olivia Laing]

which was really important and which goes alongside the not wanting the end to be. And I solved loneliness. This is the cure for loneliness. You know, the sort of. The cliched version of that would be I got into a relationship and it was all over and I escaped. And I didn't want to escape. I wanted it to end in a sense of I'm still. And it's okay to be here. It's okay to feel difficult feelings. I guess that if there's a single message to the book, apart from a lot of those feelings of political, it is that it's okay to feel them. It's safe to feel them. You know, that sort of Winnicott style model of just making room around things and not panicking and needing to escape those things. I'm reading your watch upside down.

[Charlie Porter]

Yeah, yeah. Three, two.

[Olivia Laing]

We've got two minutes. We're on a very tight schedule tonight. We've got your water breaks. We've got the questions.

[Charlie Porter]

I mean, the thing, the thing for me reading it now as like in my 50s, is actually it's a book about wisdom and whether you're able to be open to wisdom. And some people go through their lives not being able to be open to wisdom and still scared of living. And actually it's like loneliness is part of life and understand that. Right. It's like.

[Olivia Laing]

And I. I'd been very involved in Buddhism in my twenties and I was very, very interested in Pema Chodron, who's a Buddhist nun. And her books were really about that. They're called things like start where you are, the wisdom of no escape. And they're really about spirituality isn't being somewhere else ever. It's not about chasing down feel good states. It's about inhabiting the reality of where you are and then watching it change like weather. And I guess that really completely imbued the feelings around writing this book. The sense that I didn't want people to feel bad for the feelings that they had. I didn't want people to feel like they had to go and perform perfect sociability, that they had to look like they had this perfect populated life. That, that the way that we find the thing we want, which is intimacy and love, is to be real with where we are. And that means just accepting that a lot of the time we feel like shit. That's my wisdom. Uplifting.

[Charlie Porter]

Well, thank you, Olivia. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, so basically we're gonna. We're gonna go off 15 minutes, get water, buy books, gather drinks, and we'll see in 15 minutes.

[Olivia Laing]

Think of your questions.

[Charlie Porter]

Yeah, think of your questions.

[Olivia Laing]

Yes.

[Charlie Porter]

Thank you, everyone. Thank you, everyone. Welcome back. So there are going to be roaming microphones and then for those at the top, if you've got a question, there's microphones there and there's. So I'm going to be the one saying you, you. So do you want to put hands up? Has anyone got a question? Someone, please.

[Olivia Laing]

Some very fast. Hand over.

[Charlie Porter]

Okay. Hand over here. Thank you.

[Olivia Laing]

Hello. Thank you so much. My question is, do you still get lonely and does it feel different now? Good question. Yes, absolutely. And maybe it feels slightly less frightening now. But I think part of just the experience of loneliness is that it is frightening. So it's not like it's instantly familiar and fine and. But as Charlie was saying earlier, it's like it is a necessary condition of writing books that you are very much on your own. And not just that, like, I guess a sort of thing inside this book is that there's no reason to make things unless you feel that you're not quite conveying things in your day to day social or romantic or human to human life. So I think there's a sort of long term strand of loneliness that's just about wanting to take internal experiences or internal perceptions that I maybe find very hard to articulate and put them in the form of a book and send them out into the world in the hope that they make sense to somebody. And I think that level of loneliness is just always, always there. And that I have definitely become more friendly with. Good question.

[Charlie Porter]

Yeah. Okay. There's a hand at the back there and then.

[Olivia Laing]

Seen that one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you were to write the book now, given everything that's happened in your own life or in the world, have you got any artists that you sort of have in your head that you would include in the book now? Gosh, I never really think about that because it would be such a completely different book. And I think it would be in a way much harder to find that tone of tenderness because the world has changed so much politically in a way that I've tried to chart in book after book that I've written subsequently. So in a way that sort of melancholy calmness and quietness itself has become much more imperiled. And I don't know about specific artists, but I wanted to put Frank o' Hara in the Lonely City and I couldn't fit him in. So he was somebody that sort of got left out. And the book that I've just written, the Silver Book, is about Pierpaolo Pasolini, the filmmaker. And I've been touring that for the last month. And somebody said recently he would have been a great character for the Lonely City. And now I'm kind of, I've got all the pangs about how brilliantly he would have woven through. He went to New York, there's photos of him by Agnes Varda in Times Square. So I think there are still people where I'm like, oh, you would have fitted into that book. But the idea of writing it now, I think it would just be such a different story. Then there was somebody down here.

[Charlie Porter]

Down, down. That's it.

[Olivia Laing]

So no, I just wanted to share a recent experience. So I went into a well known bookseller's to buy a copy of Lonely City for a friend and I spent about half an hour searching the bookstore and I sort of thought, and I sort of thought, well, this is rather strange, where is it going to be? So I looked in psychology, I looked in gender politics, I sort of went, oh, maybe a novel, don't know. And then in the end I went up to the counter and I sort of said, olivia. And I knew you were bringing out this 10th anniversary book, so I sort of said, olivia Laing, Lonely City. Oh yes, she's in the travel section. I just found that so curious. I mean, I said nothing. I have no control over these. And in a way, all my books don't fit into specific genres. They're all different from each other. They could be in biography, they could be in memoir, they certainly could be in travel, politics, art. So I think maybe bookshops themselves should reorganize in a better way because I can't change what I'm doing.

[Charlie Porter]

And actually to say further on this, we were just saying before that actually what happened with Lonely City was bookseller selling, hand selling the book, recommending themselves. So actually often in bookshops, it's often bookshops that don't necessarily have those categories, but they just love books. And it's like, you must, must read this.

[Olivia Laing]

I think it really is that, that it's been individual booksellers not just in the uk, in America as well, and sort of across the world who, you know, have found some kind of solace in it and then have passed it on to people. And that honestly, this is the foundation of every other book and every sort of readership that I found subsequently is the relationship that that book has with independent booksellers. That's where it began. And I'm always so grateful to booksellers because of that. Because, you know, there's Amazon and there's the algorithm and on the other hand, there are people in shops across the world who read and then want to share what they've read. And that sort of again, it's like a secret language.

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[Olivia Laing]

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[Olivia Laing]

Thank you for speaking and writing with such candor. I was wondering, obviously it's been now a decade, decade and a Half since. Since this era of exploration for you, but then also, obviously, the era that you're talking about culturally has continued as time must just slide into the past. I wonder what it is like for you around this anniversary period, realizing that that era is continuing to go by, and the people, the kind of icons and artists and individuals who provided you with a lot of solace. You might have. Actually, you've gotten older than some of them ever were able to, unfortunately. I mean, I'm just kind of thinking that when I was a child, I thought that at some point in adulthood I would no longer need guidance. But that's actually an enormous myth, and it never stops, does it? That's such a good point. And I think I was the same age as Wojnarowicz when I was writing the book. And obviously I've carried on getting older. And there was definitely a point of realizing Derek Jarman isn't in this book, but there was definitely a point of realizing that Derek Jarman, who I loved as a teenager, who seemed like a total, you know, adult, is actually now very close to the age that I am. So that. That in itself is a strange thing. But also, when I was writing the proposal for this book, there was a lot of back and forth about who could be the cast. And PJ and I had. My American agent had long, impassioned conversations about why it needed to be this cast and why Madonna and Donna Karan weren't going to be characters. So there was a real sense of, like, nobody knows who David Wojnarowicz is and nobody cares. And I think we really had to stay very firm about that and say, honestly, people will care. Trust us on this. So seeing those artists, Peter Hujar as well, really getting their dues, getting big shows, moving up into sort of more of the mainstream status that they should always have had has been very exciting as well. And it's, you know, it's always instinct with books or with the kind of books I write. Putting together those casts is. I just had a very strong feeling that these were the people I needed to tell this narrative and that there was no. There was no way of doing it with maybe better known figures. Edward Hopper was the best known at the time. Yeah, okay, wait.

[Charlie Porter]

I'm just going to say the people by the microphone there. Are you actually waiting to ask a question, or were you just sitting there? Do you want to ask a question? Do you want to go to the microphone?

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Hello?

[Olivia Laing]

I'm not quite sure how to formulate the question, but I was thinking about the city that you chose to base the book in. I know that that was based on your own experience, but do you think it would have had the same impact if it was based anywhere else? If there's any other cities that you might have based in? Actually, that is a great question and sort of goes back to the previous question because that's the fantasy I quite often have is the versions of it in different places, because it so much started with plays. And there clearly is a London version that probably wouldn't be set in the 70s. Maybe it would be set in the 50s and it would be, you know, very rainy. And maybe Francis Bacon would be in it. I mean, I long to write that book, but I've done it. I can't. Please write it. I'd really like to. And it could have been in any city. There could have been a Berlin version, and I could have assembled a cast for any of them. So it really was happenstance that I was in New York and I set up this group of people who were in New York, and I used the city. But every city has its loneliness narrative. Every city has its set of artists who you could tell that narrative with. And it's very painful to me to not be able to do all of them. Thank you. Thank you.

[Charlie Porter]

Okay, hands over here.

[Olivia Laing]

There's some over there.

[Charlie Porter]

Okay. Yeah, we'll come over here next.

[Olivia Laing]

Yeah, don't worry. Thank you.

[Charlie Porter]

Hi.

[Olivia Laing]

I just wonder what you think approaching writing about political issues or themes through the lens of art allows for that. Maybe writing about politics more directly or head on can't. It's interesting because I always think I do write about politics head on, but I think if you've got art in the mix, then maybe there's an assumption that it's diluted in some way. For me, it's material with which to think. If I'm talking about an artist, but particularly if I'm talking about works of art. It's material to be able to tell a narrative that is about real people, their real lives, the real issues that they're facing, the intellectual material by which the political situation has happened. It feels to me like the most straightforward, the most urgent, the most basic way of doing it. But I suppose traditionally and especially perhaps in this country, there's an assumption that political writing is very narrow, that it's basically political journalism, and that it's basically party political, which I'm not. I am interested in. But that's not really what I'm talking about. And since this book I've been writing ongoingly about Fascism and resistance to fascism, with nonfiction, with fiction, you know, with all the tools that I have. And those books are absolutely engaged in the reality of political struggle. But I suppose what I want to do is use material that engages people, that draws people in, and that makes people understand that those things aren't sort of abstruse and separate. And this. This also touches on the previous question about genres. There isn't a political and an art. There are. There aren't these separate domains. There isn't, you know, the personal and the political. These things intermesh all the time. And what I'm interested in is the places where they meet and where you can really drill into how global themes affect individual lives and how individual lives affect global currents. So, yeah, I'm really enjoying these questions.

[Charlie Porter]

Okay, we're going to go over here now, right? Where do you want to go?

[Olivia Laing]

There's somebody right there in that arch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was really worried there wouldn't be any questions. And I was saying to Charlie, what should we do? What would we do? Hi. I just was wondering whether you thought about dissociation or fragmentation when you were writing this book or afterwards. Because I feel like a lot of the things you touched on today made me think about that, particularly when you talk about, like, a dream language. I feel like a lot of artists create that dream language because some things, when you get too close to them, become impossible to articulate. And that makes a lot of beauty, but it also makes them lonelier. That is very interesting because the book ends with this whole long riff about collage making and glue. And the sense of art is this way, this sort of technique of making things that feel in pieces have a sense of wholeness, but a sense of wholeness that's still pieced together, a sort of loose container for holding parts. And it fascinated me how articulately, Henry Darger wrote about that. Andy Warhol wrote about that. Andy Warhol would literally write in his diary, day after day, glued myself together, which he meant, put his wig on, put his makeup on. But he also meant just assemble the disassociation from fragmented part, parts of himself into a coherent being that could go out into the world. And I think this sense of collage making, but art making more broadly is a process by which that can be done. And for me, the book was absolutely a way in which I could contain broken parts in something that was coherent and whole, but not unbroken at the same time. Yeah, that question is urgent.

[Charlie Porter]

Thank you.

[Olivia Laing]

I was wondering if you think about that lonely time in New York. Now, do you see it through, filtered through the experience of writing about it? If you think about that time, do you see the act of writing about it or the experience itself? I could still summon some fairly piercingly painful memories of that period. It still feels. Fresh enough to spook me. You know, when I talk about it, it's like I've got a patter about it, and I can say, oh, this thing happened. And there's the language that I've built up to say what happened. But if I actually privately think about it, it was a very, very frightening time. And there are scenes that I remember from it that I maybe didn't put in the book, but also scenes that I did like, actually more. The places, the apartments, the sublets that I was in can really summon a sort of chill of horror. And the experience of writing the book wasn't like that. The experience writing the book was difficult and complicated, but also pleasurable. And I think that's what you know, when you're describing reading it. There's a. There's a pleasure in it. And part of that pleasure was the feeling of being able to, you know, really write my way to something else, find a container to put it all in that felt like it had a kind of coherence. Yeah. Kitty Laing.

[Charlie Porter]

Well, so thank you all for your questions. So Olivia's now going to read the last five paragraphs of the book before we end.

[Olivia Laing]

There are so many things that art can't do. It can't bring the dead back to life. It can't mend arguments between friends or cure aids or haunt the place of climate change. All the same, it does have some extraordinary functions, some odd negotiating ability between people, including people who never meet and yet who infiltrate and enrich each other's lives. It does have a capacity to create intimacy. It does have a way of healing wounds, and better yet, of making it apparent that not all wounds need healing. Not all scars are ugly. If I sound adamant, it is because I'm speaking from personal experience. When I came to New York, I was in pieces. And though it sounds perverse, the way I recovered a sense of wholeness was not by meeting someone or falling in love, but rather by handling the things that other people had made, slowly absorbing by way of this contact the fact that loneliness, longing does not mean one has failed, but simply that one is alive. There is a gentrification that's happening to cities, and there's a gentrification that is happening to the emotions, too, with a similarly homogenizing whitening. Deadening effect. Amidst the glossiness of late capitalism, we're fed the notion that all difficult feelings, depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage are simply a consequence of unsettled chemistry, a problem to be fixed rather than a response to structural injustice. Or, on the other hand, to the native texture of embodiment of doing time, as David Wojnarowicz memorably put it in a rented body with with all the attendant grief and frustration that entails. I don't believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone. Not necessarily. I think it's about two learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion which can and should be resisted. Loneliness is personal and it's also political. Loneliness is collective. It is a city as to how to inhabit it. There are no rules, and nor is there any need to feel shame only to remember that the pursuit of individual happiness does not trump or excuse our obligations to each other. We're in this together, this accumulation of scars, this world of objects, this physical and temporary heaven that so often takes on the countenance of hell. What matters is kindness. What matters is solidarity. What matters is staying alert, staying open. Because if we know anything from what has gone before us, it is that the time for feeling will not last.

[Charlie Porter]

Thank you everyone. Thank you. Olivia, thank you for being here. So thank you all. Thank you so much.

[Olivia Laing]

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by me, Mia Sorrenti and it was edited by Mark Roberts for ad free episodes and full length recordings. You can become a [e-mail] membership and if you'd like to join us at future live events, you can find our full program and buy tickets [e-mail] attend. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us. The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. @blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure right now. Get up to 40% off site wide plus get a free professional measure. At blinds.com rules and restrictions apply. Stitch fix. Stop shopping. Get styled. Not today, sweatpants. Somebody's wearing jeans that fit.

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