The Opposite of Loneliness

This week I finished a book. Something I rarely managed throughout my entire three years studying Literature. Pats self on the back. Better late than never, I guess. From the title I'm assuming, you assumed this might have been an overly personal rant about feelings. That's where you're mistaken -I have no feelings. I'm kidding, of course, because the book I've just finished, The Opposite of Loneliness, hit me right in the feels. This proving true the well documented rumour of my hectic emotions.

This article is me, telling you (fellow post-uni creative types and uncreative types alike) to read this book. The Opposite of Loneliness is a posthumously published, collection of short stories and essays from Yale graduate, Marina Keegan. I speak directly to those wandering the post-studies maze because this book was born from the same excitement and anxiety that we are currently trying to departmentalise in our young and wild minds.

The collection opens with Marina's final essay, one which was published in The New Yorker and turned viral, synonymously titled The Opposite of Loneliness. She articulates the essence of being a student, far better than any definition I could string together in words. The bizarre cocktail of post-university emotions are defined and wrapped up in the succinct bow of Marina Keegan's words. It's a relief to know that someone else gets it.

Marina's language reminds me of the classmates I critiqued in writing workshops. It reminds me of my own writing. It's a language that felt simple and immature in my own stories, but somehow seems fresh in published print. Marina's writing is honest and unafraid and sometimes cliche -it's youthful. A far cry from the thesaurus-driven, high-register attempts at sounding adult I had to pretend I'd fully read in writing workshops.

The stories, as cliche would dictate, made me both laugh and cry in the waiting rooms of hospitals, on train journeys between my London-home and my home-home and in many well-needed baths. Above all emotional reactions, this book inspired me to write. Actually it kept me up at night, worried that I hadn't written stories that were good enough or even just enough. It made me question my future and what I wanted out of a career and, of course, it highlighted the delicacy of life.

Read The Opposite of Loneliness, because I said so. Read Marina's famous essay or read it all. Whether that's for guidance, comfort or just genuinely witty writing, is up to you.

(Photo of Marina Keegan politely borrowed from The Guardian)