The Loneliness Files

by Athena Dixon Narrated by Emana Rachelle

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

09/11/2023

Poet and essayist Dixon (The Incredible Shrinking Woman) shines in this heartbreaking reflection on her sense of isolation before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, Dixon was living in a two-bedroom apartment in Philadelphia hundreds of miles from the rest of her family. Then Covid hit, and she feared she may have lost all “connective threads” with other humans. She binged a steady stream of movies, YouTube videos, and true crime podcasts, becoming obsessed with the deaths of three women: Joyce Carol Vincent, who died in front of her TV and was not found for three years; Elisa Lam, who was caught behaving erratically on security footage before she was found dead atop a Los Angeles hotel; and Geneva Chambers, who died in bed and wasn’t discovered for years, largely because she’d alienated her neighbors. Each woman provided a warped cautionary tale onto which Dixon projected her own anxieties. In 16 essays that weave together pop culture, personal history, and poetic musings, Dixon considers the cultural roots of loneliness and illuminates potential paths to salvation. It amounts to an indelible portrait of contemporary isolation that soothes and slices with the same steady hand. (Oct.)

Los Angeles Review of Books

"Profoundly powerful."

The Amsterdam News

"Dixon’s searing vulnerability shines."

A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 The Millions

"The rare exploration of internet existence that sounds like it has something urgent to say."

Jeannine Ouellette

"Haunting, affecting, and searingly smart, Athena Dixon's The Loneliness Files is both a mirror and soundtrack for our times. She offers us, in prose both lyrical and hypnotic, insights so unflinching they left me breathless. This book goes beyond one woman's loneliness to illuminate essential truths about our collective aloneness."

WBUR

"Brilliantly honest and beautifully written."

Destiny O. Birdsong

"In The Loneliness Files, Athena Dixon dissects the social constructs that both create and pathologize loneliness, ultimately concluding that the remedy might not be its eradication, but a radical re-envisioning of what loneliness can make possible: a deeper understanding of oneself, a deeper appreciation of the connections that keep us tethered to the world, and the absolute wonder of finding unexpected pockets of joy in solitude. Dixon writes with the astute candor of a recluse who has invited you into her most intimate spaces, ones that are rich with the minutia of a contemporary life, and in so doing, she compels you to consider the intricacies of your own."

Alex Jennings

"Overflowing with affection and humanity even as it examines difficult subjects, The Loneliness Files is one of those all-too-rare treats: a memoir to converse with. It is musical, truthful, and as I read, I left notes in the margins, re-examined my own experience of the global Pandemic, and let the conversation re-shape my present. This book is a true gem, and only a superior essayist could have created it. Instead of putting it down when I finished, I flipped right back to page 1 and started over."

Chicago Review of Books

"Thought-provoking. . . . What makes The Loneliness Files an engrossing, often astonishing read is the author’s admirable candor. By excavating her discomfort and divulging her most vulnerable longing, Dixon generates a higher, rarer level of connection with the reader—and that seems a powerful legacy."

Common Good

"Her essays hold eloquent portrayals of the most common and quiet feelings of loneliness. But most compelling, they resist a tragic end. Though her words may have readers diving deep into what it means to be lonely, they’re likely to resurface with practical ways forward."

Full Stop

"Unique. . . . simultaneously intense and breezy."

Booklist

"Moving and lyrical."

BOMB Magazine

"Brilliant, unique. . . . An engaging blend of lyrical prose, pop culture references, journal entries, research spirals, and authentic inquiry."

New York Times Book Review

"Vulnerable . . . .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."

Hippocampus Magazine

"Cracks open some of life’s most fundamental questions through the lens of loneliness."

A Best Book of November Debutiful

"A stunning expose on loneliness, internet life, and aging. Dixon beautifully examines who we are and what we desire through the lens of her life. Dixon’s writing is jaw-droppingly good."

Electric Literature

"With a sharp attention to language befitting her background as a poet, she brings the reader deep into her life’s experiences."

West Trade Review

"Intimate. . . . Engaging. . . . leaves readers contemplating not just loneliness but also hope and possibility long after reading The Loneliness Files. In that contemplative state, perhaps we find ourselves connected in some way."

Liber Review

"The intimacy of Dixon’s book is vulnerable. At times it reads almost like a private journal. But the effect is tender rather than voyeuristic. She invites us into a kind of kinship."

Brooklyn Rail

"Dixon’s writing is powered by a certainty that she is not the only one who feels the way she describes, and that there is a value in straightforwardly and vulnerably saying so."

Hobart Pulp

"I felt so seen in Dixon’s memoir. What a relief—I’m not the only one who feels so lonely."

Shondaland

"Captivating."

Laura Cathcart Robbins

"Athena Dixon is my favorite sort of writer: Startlingly direct, vulnerable, and astonishingly honest. In The Loneliness Files, Dixon invites us to sit on her sofa with her, and with unflinching humility, reveals to us that her fear of dying alone is only eclipsed by her fear of not being remembered. I can assure you that anyone who reads The Loneliness Files will not be able to forget Dixon or her extraordinarily relatable journey."

Library Journal

★ 09/15/2023

Written as a personal memoir, yet highly relevant in this COVID world, Dixon's book about loneliness shows how damaging it is when parasocial bonds or one-sided relationships replace structures of social support or cohesion. Dixon, an award-winning poet, essayist, and editor who has contributed work to The BreakBeat Poets, Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic, opens the book with a vulnerable, visceral description of the sensory impact of loneliness and its potential to enfold reality in fictions of solitude that, for many people, become defining narratives. Dixon's stories of disconnection and death range from the pointed to the poignant, consistently favoring complexity over easy assessments. Some may find that reading this book feels like listening to melancholy folk songs on repeat after a bad break-up. Extending this theme, Dixon offers suggested listening for each section of the text. VERDICT Reflective yet urgent, reverberating with feeling. Dixon beautifully articulates how loneliness is paradoxically a narrative that people experience together, even as they experience it in spaces of isolation, vulnerability, and loss.—Emily Bowles

Kirkus 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.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159474865
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/28/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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.

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