The Loneliness Files

by Athena Dixon

Overview

“An essential exploration of the isolation inherent in our era of virtual hyperconnection [that] also asks how we can find our way back to one another.”—New York Times Book Review 

“I was blown away."—Hanif Abdurraqib, Tin House Editor-at-Large

What does it mean to be a body behind a screen, lost in the hustle of an online world? In our age of digital hyper-connection, Athena Dixon invites us to consider this question with depth, heart, and ferocity, investigating the gaps that technology cannot fill and confronting a lifetime of loneliness.

Living alone as a middle-aged woman without children or pets and working forty hours a week from home, more than three hundred fifty miles from her family and friends, Dixon begins watching mystery videos on YouTube, listening to true crime podcasts, and playing video game walk-throughs just to hear another human voice. She discovers the story of Joyce Carol Vincent, a woman who died alone, her body remaining in front of a glowing television set for three years before the world finally noticed. Searching for connection, Dixon plumbs the depths of communal loneliness, asking essential questions of herself and all of us: How have her past decisions left her so alone? Are we, as humans, linked by a shared loneliness? How do we see the world and our place in it? And finally, how do we find our way back to each other?

Searing and searching, The Loneliness Files is a groundbreaking memoir in essays that ultimately brings us together in its piercing, revelatory examination of how and why it is that we break apart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781959030201
Publisher:	Tin House Books
Publication date:	10/03/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Athena Dixon is a poet, essayist, and editor. Her work is included in the anthology The BreakBeat Poets Vol.2: Black Girl Magic and her craft work appears in Getting to the Truth: The Craft and Practice of Creative Nonfiction. Athena is an alumna of VONA, Callaloo, and Tin House and has received a prose fellowship from The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Born and raised in Northeast Ohio, Athena now resides in Philadelphia.

Read an Excerpt

I remember loneliness because it is pervasive. It has a way of wrapping itself around me until it hides what’s actually true. It squeezes tightly in my mind until what makes sense, what’s actually happened, is distorted. Sometimes the loneliness makes me forget the goodness and the connection of my life. I find ways to compartmentalize these experiences until it is easy to remember only what I want. I think alone is sexy. Mysterious in its heaviness. Alone seems like a choice. Loneliness doesn’t. This seems like I’ve been forgotten, passed over, discarded. It can feel like the world is way too bright—just an expanse of whiteness with nothing else in sight. It makes me feel singular and small.

On the cusp of 2021, in a green dress and red lipstick, I told myself I could cry. One wailing, sobbing mess of a breakdown between sips of liquor because when I woke up the next morning the world would appear to be new. This New Year’s Eve was only a celebration of a year that needed to end. A year that saw some of us sink into isolation and others delve further into individualism and selfishness. This night was a cap to months of loneliness. A small bit of joy and release before heading into the bleakness of what seemed to be the coming year.

I’d checked out of the news months ago—too overwhelmed by death and discord that I felt myself slipping too much into darkness. This cry was a promise to myself that it would wash away the concrete deaths and dying dreams of what 2020 could have been. I had a book on the way and I’d finally started to find my voice when I’d been so sure I’d lost it. As selfish as my feelings may have been, it just wasn’t fair and I wanted to wallow. I cried and then danced until my body slowed to rocking, and when the countdown ended the loneliness came in like a wave.

My loneliness is not groundbreaking, though. And it is not tragic. It just is. Nothing more and nothing less. I don’t expect it to be important to anyone other than myself, but I write about it anyway. I turn it over like something precious in my hands—carefully as it floats across my fingers so I can see the details of it. Where dust and dirt and grit hide—the things that irritate and choke me when I breathe too deeply.

My loneliness is deep. It’s oddly comforting because I know what to expect. It’s like a light switch—sudden and complete—when it rears its head. My body starts to wind down and my mind disengages. Loneliness and isolation have been a slow build of contentment over the years before the sudden revelation of how the two are really disconnect disguised as choice. How between parents, a sibling, family, and friends is always the fear that I will die alone. That no one will remember me.

Editorial Reviews

2023-07-14
A candid examination of the loneliness that lurks beyond our ubiquitous screens and the humanity that radiates in our bids for connection with one another.

Poet, essayist, and editor Dixon presents a series of braided essays that explore the loneliness that pervades a world that seems more globalized and interconnected than ever before. Throughout the book, the author cultivates a palpable sense of community with her readers, diving into the dark side of late-stage capitalist society. Examining the ease with which one can be forgotten in the digital age, she also looks at the unexpectedly intimate joys that can sprout when one chooses to be alone. With lyrical, memorable prose, Dixon cracks open the fear of not being remembered and invites readers to reexamine their own sense of self amid the chaos of the modern world. “I am overwhelmingly lonely. And I cannot believe that doesn’t matter and I will not believe there are not scores of others like me,” she writes. “I know there are those who feel the world is always just a little too far away or a little too close—never comfortable in either situation. Those who would love to be a part of all life has to offer fully, but something just doesn’t click.” The author emphasizes how being lonely is not something to be ignored or overlooked; it’s important and something worthy of being talked about openly. Dixon offers her own story and demons in order to bring attention to the adverse effects of loneliness during the recent pandemic as well as the need for empathy in a post-pandemic world. Though the author tackles difficult topics, she does it in an inviting way that allows readers to dissect their own struggles with loneliness. Her story is not only relatable, but significant, as she creates a sense of comfort for anyone who feels a little lonely sometimes.

An honest and captivating investigation into human connection within an increasingly digital world.

Kirkus Reviews