鈥淎 CQ call is a reaching outward, an attempt to make a connection across a wavelength with someone you鈥檝e never met,鈥 writes Kristen Radtke in Seek You.
Seek You is a work of graphic nonfiction that defies labels. (鈥淭he comic strip feature documentary? The long-form graphic essay?鈥 asks Rusty Brown.) In it, Kristen Radtke draws on cultural and scientific history as well as personal narrative to investigate loneliness and longing. What makes us engage with one another? What makes us turn away? What are the risks of our deepening isolation?
In addition to Seek You, Ms. Radtke is the author of Imagine Wanting Only This. Her comics and writing have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Harper鈥檚, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, Elle, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and many others.
Because our failure to genuinely listen and respond to others has profound political as well as public health consequences鈥攍oneliness is projected to become an epidemic by 2030, Radtke informs us.
鈥淲e just find more and more reasons to isolate ourselves from one another. 鈥 It鈥檚 so counterintuitive to who human beings are and what we need to survive,鈥 says Kristen Radtke on the Living Writers podcast. Listen to the whole three-question interview .
Kristen Radtke at 藏精阁
Join us in person or on Thursday, Oct. 3, for Kristen Radtke鈥檚 public presentation and book-signing. All Living Writers events take place at 4:30 EST in Persson Auditorium. Refreshments available.
Beyond the Book
- Kristen Radtke鈥檚 second book 鈥渆ncompasses personal and cultural history, journalism, social science and scientific research in psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology,鈥 writes Heller McAlpin in a review for .
- 鈥泪苍 Seek You, Radtke's cuts to the marrow of our inner lives as well as our online lives and public selves to explore the ways in which community, interaction, and even touch affect us, especially when these elements are missing,鈥 writes Gabino Iglesias, in this review for .
- 鈥淲hen I draw, it changes what I need to say and how I say it,鈥 says Kristen Radtke, in with Andru Okun for Hazlitt.
鈥淟oneliness is designed to alert its host to a need, just like sensations of hunger or thirst or exhaustion.鈥
Kristen Radtke, Seek You