All the Lonely People by Sam Carr investigates how "infinite shades of loneliness" can permeate, change, and define the course of human life. Carr is a psychologist and social scientist at the University of Bath, as well as the former director of the Loneliness Project, and he brings emotional heft to true accounts that intimately explore the personal ramifications of loneliness as a universal experience.
Carr admits that an "undeniable procession of loneliness" has followed him throughout his own life. His focus on the topic was heavily influenced by interactions with his grandfather who, in his older age, struggled with deep sadness as he tried to navigate and make sense of life after his beloved wife, Carr's grandmother, died. The immensity of his grandfather's isolating grief made such an impact on Carr that he devoted his professional life to examining the relationships between constructs such as love, loss, and human connection.
With great compassion and astute insight, Carr braids his personal experiences of feeling alone with conversational case studies of ordinary people from a wide range of ages and backgrounds. He also draws on examples from popular culture, such as authors David Foster Wallace and Hanya Yanagihara and movies such as The Elephant Man. His eye-opening portraits depict different ways that loneliness manifests in people's lives and how they grapple with feelings of sadness, invisibility, and neglect due to broken relationships, relocations, mental and physical illnesses, and other traumatic life events.
Carr's probing excavation will help readers gain access to their inner lives and emotions, and to discover what it truly means to be human--and thus, to feel much less alone. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines