Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2024
288 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
A timely, beautifully observed debut novel set in near future New York about a young woman who finds herself tangled in a secret Government project combating loneliness.
Lee knows she's the best. A professor favorite and fellowship winner, there's no doubt she'll land one of the coveted jobs at a Big Five corporation. So when, upon graduating, Lee is instead assigned to an unknown company in the dead city of New York, her life goals are completely upended.
In this new role, Lee's task is to gather enough research to train an AI how to be a friend. She begins online and by studying the social circle of her clueless, outgoing roommate Veronika. But when the company reveals it's part of a classified government mission to solve loneliness-an emotion erased from society's lexicon decades ago-Lee's determination to prove herself kicks into overdrive, and she begins chasing bolder and more dangerous experiences to provide data for the AI.
How far will Lee go to teach the algorithm? As the mysterious affliction spreads, Lee must decide what she's willing to give up for success and, along the way, learn what it means to be a true friend.
Loneliness & Company is an enchanting, gorgeously written novel about finding meaning and connection in a world beset by isolation.
"[A]n inventive dystopian novel...The novel's view of the future is particularly distinct in its depictions of dating life...Dyroff also 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." —Publishers Weekly
"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." —Debutiful
"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." —Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams and Make it Scream, Make it Burn
"Naturally intelligent. An inventive, timely, and perceptive story about human connection and being alive." —Emily Austin, author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
This information about Loneliness & Company was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Charlee Dyroff has an MFA from Columbia University, and her work has appeared in Slate, Gulf Coast, Lapham's Quarterly, Guernica, Ploughshares, Eater, and The Best American Food Writing of 2019. She lives in New York.
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