Loneliness & Company

Reviews

Dyroff’s near future-set book is a bewitching story about technology and isolation. It will grip readers with mesmerizing writing and a tautly-paced plot. Inventive . . . The novel’s view of the future is particularly distinct in its depictions of dating life . . . Dyroff nails the ways in which single-minded ambition can obscure opportunities for connection. This brims with clear insight and unsettling visions of the world to come. Charlee Dyroff's Loneliness & Company is a sharply etched and strangely propulsive story about artificial intelligence and authentic feeling: a canny, tender exploration of the stories we tell about our bonds with each other, and the realities we'd rather not face about our bonds with the technologies that shape our days. Naturally intelligent. An inventive, timely, and perceptive story about human connection and being alive. It’s such a great premise: a future in which loneliness has allegedly been eradicated. I was hooked from the start, and marveled at the poignancy of watching Lee relearn the basics of friendship for the sake of an AI program. Honestly, it felt like where we might all end up if we continue to let social media dominate our lives. Dyroff’s brilliant story will make you want to hold all your—real—friends closer. Charlee Dyroff’s Loneliness & Company brings us into a world in which technology has solved almost all of our problems except that most universal yet alienating emotional condition of all—loneliness. Tender and hopeful, Dyroff’s story glimmers with humor, empathy, and profound insights into the inner workings of the human heart and psyche. Her vision is utterly singular, captivating, and full of heart, reminding us of the incalculable intimacies of being alive. Reading this book felt like catching up with an old friend, or meeting a new one. This book is funny, tender, strange, and modern. Dyroff has written a bildungsroman for the robot set, a profound look at human curiosity and longing in a finely wrought near-future New York. Loneliness & Company resonates and pops; it infiltrated my dreams. To inflict the demand of 'utility' on a novel is to succumb to just the sort of doomed tech logic that Dyroff skewers so nimbly and with so much intelligence in her debut. Nonetheless, if one use for literature is to make us feel less alone, then the author has succeeded brilliantly with Loneliness & Company. This is a tender, visionary, wide-hearted book that offers itself as a course corrective to our hyper-quantified, algorithm-craven age. Dyroff's novel brilliantly uses a futuristic, slightly off-kilter world to highlight the absurdity and pain of our current reality. However, Dyroff's sharp, electric prose and wry humor keep Loneliness & Company from ever feeling weighed down by its circumstances. With her debut, Dyroff has pulled off a truly impressive feat—writing a story about loneliness that isn't so much a cautionary tale, but a tender, heartfelt reminder to value your time on Earth and the people that make your days more than just a sunrise and a sunset. A new and talented writer to watch. Loneliness & Company is a stunning novel, full of lyricism, brilliance and quiet integrity, boldly tackling the most complex philosophical ideas. How do you define loneliness that plagues all of us, increasingly so? Is it a personal affliction or an existential condition? I’ll be thinking about this novel for a long time. In Dyroff’s deeply original novel, it is possible to see the future. Loneliness & Company invites us into a techno laden world that is not so far from our own. A riveting and unforgettable story of ambition that also reminds us how essential friendship is. Literary fiction for the concerned citizen who can’t put her phone down. “Dyroff's debut is fun to read, taking place in a world that’s entertaining to ponder: what will our priorities be after the full AI renaissance? Dyroff is beyond imaginative, specifically so in building a world that's just close enough to present reality. Perfect for fans of Dave Eggers’ The Circle.” Expand reviews