Skin hunger, laugh tracks, robotic dolls, and talking to strangers across the country on a ham radio. Kristen Radtke explores, writes and draws these aspects of loneliness in her graphic non-fiction book, “Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness.”
It’s a book that’s deeply researched, beautifully illustrated and evokes surprise and emotion at every page turn. It manages to be philosophy and history, art and literature, and mirrors the daily life of so many Americans. Radtke began this book in 2016, and it became even more powerful as loneliness and COVID collided as twin pandemics.
But in what could have been a sad, bummer of a book, Radtke shows the worst but still hopes for the best. "I want us to use loneliness — yours, and mine — to find our way back to each other. I want us to play songs for each other on the radio. And when we call out across an airwave or a telephone or a chatroom or an app or a city street or an open field or our bedroom, I want us each to hear, miraculously, a voice calling back," she writes.
“Seek You” is a great companion to read along with listening to our show we re-aired this weekend, “Living with Loneliness.” We hear from poet Claudia Rankine about the loneliness of being Black in America, the political side through the work of Hannah Arendt, and, we meet an artificial intelligence friend named Samantha.
–Shannon