Ep. 194 How We Understand Loneliness with Kristen Radtke

Written By Megan Caballero

Kristen Radkte is the author of Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness, a work of graphic nonfiction that uses prose and images to explore the experience and portrayal of loneliness. It is spectacular. Kristen talks to us about the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our collective understanding of loneliness, what she wishes more people knew about graphic books, and how to connect with the lonely in our lives.

The Stacks Book Club selection for December is A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib. We will discuss the book on December 29th with Andrew Ti.

 
 

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and today I am joined by the author of one of my most favorite books of the year, Kristin Radtke. Her latest book is called Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness, and is a work of graphic nonfiction, which isn’t a genre I usually read, but I was so blown away by this book. I knew that I had to have Kristen on The Stacks before the year’s end and we talked today about loneliness, the artistry of graphic books, and so, so much more.

Okay, I’m very excited today I get to talk with you all with Kristin Radtke. Who is the author of Seek You: a journey through American loneliness. Kristen, welcome to the Stacks.

Kristen Radtke 0:48
Hi, Tracy, thanks for having me.

Traci Thomas 2:05
I’m so excited to have you. Your book is one of my favorite books of this year. It is a graphic nonfiction slash memoir. It doesn’t roll off the tongue as well as graphic novels. But it’s not a graphic novel. And I don’t want people to think that because it’s real life, true story stuff. And it’s incredible. So in about 30 seconds or so can you just sort of tell folks about the book?

Kristen Radtke 2:30
So the book is basically, it’s an exploration of loneliness in America, sort of ideologically in terms of our history in terms of cultural stuff today, through the media through the lens of my personal life, and then through, basically science and sociology.

Traci Thomas 2:46
And where did you come up with the idea for this book?

Kristen Radtke 2:49
Ah, it’s a good question, I find that I have a hard time remembering the origins of projects, because they’re just so nebulous, and you realize, like, you’re, you’re wrong at first for so long about what you’re working on. And then you suddenly understand it, it’s like, you have to learn what it is and has to teach you what it is. But I was starting, I started thinking a lot about loneliness in 2016. It was like a lonely year. For me, it was kind of a transitionary time, I’m always looking for statistics about whether or not election years are lonelier than other years, but it feels like they are to me. And so I just started thinking about isolation, particularly in New York, where I live, I realized I sort of kind of like being creepy and like staring at people who were alone. And then I started drawing them. And it started as an illustrated series. And I kind of thought as far as it would go, but I just got kind of obsessed with the topic.

Traci Thomas 3:37
Yeah. So obviously, you started in 2016. And you have this on the first few pages of the book you talk about, you know, I’ve started this in 2016. You’re probably reading this in a post pandemic world. Yeah. Loneliness probably means different things now. And so I’m wondering, now that the books been out for a while, and people have had a response to the book, and you’ve had time to sort of think about what you created. How has the pandemic changed your understanding of this book?

Kristen Radtke 4:06
So that’s a that’s a really interesting and complicated question.

Traci Thomas 4:09
It’s hard.

Kristen Radtke 4:10
It’s hard to, I mean, like, the pandemic, I think, has changed a lot of people’s relationship to loneliness and their understanding of loneliness, or maybe the way that they think about it. I think loneliness has, for a long time been a very private thing. And the pandemic made it a very collective thing, which was, in some ways, kind of extraordinary, because it gave us an opportunity to talk about this thing that has been stigmatized for a long time. But I do think it’s important to think through the differences between sort of like systemic long term, cultural, societal loneliness, and then like the imposed loneliness or isolation of a lockdown. And so I try I think, I think about the book in terms of kind of like a longer a longer look that has been now sometimes informed by the pandemic, like one of the things I complain about in the book is like being in a packed subway car. And it’s like, you know, most of us aren’t impacted by cars as often anymore. You know, things like that. Like, there are certain things that feel like almost like relics to me of like my former life, you know, in the book.

Traci Thomas 5:13
That’s so interesting. Can you explain to folks a little bit what you mean by systemic loneliness?

Kristen Radtke 5:19
Yeah, so, so basically, so Okay, so there’s, there’s two factors. And that one is that kind of through my reading and through from my point of view, America is a place that really fosters isolation, because we’re a very individualistic society. It’s like, we’re all working really hard to get ahead. We’re all like, learning to depend on herself. Like the whole, like, notion of pulling oneself up by their bootstraps is this idea that you can do something alone, which is a total fallacy, we we all need community in order to survive both like in the grand scheme of human history and today. And then I also think about loneliness in terms of chronic loneliness. And scientists usually define that as a period of seven years, but it’s at least seven years, but it’s all over the map, depending on kind of what scientific study you’re looking at. And that’s basically living in a long term state of social unfulfillment.

Traci Thomas 6:06
Okay, how did you go about researching this book? Because you pull in a lot of different pieces of American culture. I mean, you also you pull, you’re talking about Harry Harlow, in his experiment on mice, you’re talking about American like sitcoms, you’re talking about radios, you’re talking to you about Princess Diana, you’re talking about parenting? How did you sort of approach putting this huge, I mean, you’re talking about a feeling, yeah, and experience, but you’re also connecting all these different dots. So I’m wondering sort of your process in researching, and also maybe your process and putting it together, tie it together.

Kristen Radtke 6:48
So research is my favorite part of a project, because it’s all possibility. It’s like anything could be like anything can still happen. And like you’re discovering things and you’re like, in awe of the things you’re discovering, at least I have to be in order for me to, like, convince myself to sit down every day, and not just like watch television instead. Because writing is so hard. But but you know, so I really have to be enthralled by what I’m by what I’m reading, and then what I’m and then to work to translate that onto the page. So basically, I started reading some books about loneliness, like, books with the title, loneliness, you know, like really, really like sort of intro scientific surveys. And then the great thing about reading as all readers listening to this podcast will know is that it opens up new reading, yes, you know, maybe a book mentions another book and you get that book or it mentions a study and you read that study and all of a sudden I was going down all these rabbit holes and then like my shelf of full of books about loneliness was growing and growing and growing and growing in ways that I didn’t anticipate because once you start looking at loneliness, you realize how ingrained it is in all of us because it’s such a basic biological function. And so I could I started really seeing it every like literally everywhere, you know, I could watch like a rerun of madmen and be like, well, this is this episode is actually about loneliness. Or, you know, look at someone like Princess Diana, who’s a really lonely icon and think about her through the lens of a viewers loneliness.

Traci Thomas 8:16
Do you still now see loneliness everywhere?

Kristen Radtke 8:19
Definitely.

Traci Thomas 8:20
Yeah. Do something to you does that. Is that soothing? Is that saddening. Like, what is that?

Kristen Radtke 8:26
It’s both I think, like, I do feel like I mentioned, I talked about this a lot. But I do feel like writing a book about loneliness made me a less lonely person, because I understand it more than for me understanding something is so essential to being able to kind of move through it. But it is, it is saddening, I mean, I think more than I see loneliness everywhere, I see a need for community everywhere. And I see all of these moments where like, what we’re really driving towards is community and how community can be both harmful and extremely necessary and beneficial.

Traci Thomas 8:59
Yeah. What you said about sort of writing of this book making you feel like maybe less alone a little bit. I had that experience reading the book. I felt like, Oh, I’m not special when I feel alone and sad. Like I’m not special when I feel isolated. Like I’m actually part of something that other people experience. And so in that way, it’s the book sort of gave a sense of community, if you will, like with other lonely readers.

Kristen Radtke 9:30
Yeah I mean, I definitely was like, I remember having conversations with my editor where he’s like, we have to be careful, this can’t be too depressing. And I’m like, for me, it is a really hopeful book because it’s about how the It’s this feeling that feels very private and very shameful is actually universal. And that it’s, it’s a tool we can use to sort of bring ourselves back to each other. I mean, if you look at why, and that’s, I think, why. Going back to the question about research why that research was so fascinating to me is because there’s just things that I I never could have imagined. But that makes so much sense when I think through it, like what reason will like the reason that we feel so our brains can’t differentiate between physical pain and emotional pain, like your brain reacts exactly the same way. Like it doesn’t know the difference, which is fascinating. And it makes total sense when you think about how difficult and how painful emotional pain is. So loneliness is a kind of emotional pain. And and so in, like, what when were we were like early humans, and we needed each other to survive in a really basic way, like for warmth, or because we needed someone to like hunt what we gathered, or whatever, you know, we needed to be together, or we were really in danger. So when we, when we felt this alarm bell, basically in our brains about emotional pain, it was because it was trying to propel us back to each other because we were in physical danger if we were alone. So all of those, all of those mechanisms are still inside our heads. Now, even though we live in a world that’s quite different in which a lot of us spend, you know, all of our time at an office job or alone in our cars, like those, those hormones are still kind of coursing through our bodies. Because our bodies still don’t know we’re not out of that kind of fight or flight stage that we were in when we were earlier humans, right?

Traci Thomas 11:13
Are you someone who loves research? I mean, I think one of the reasons I love to read, especially nonfiction and about a lot of different topics is I like to pretend you know that I’m an expert on something, reading a book, like, like, like your book, I was like, Oh, I learned all this stuff about monkeys. I’m so smart now. But I’m wondering, as the writer who you’re taking in a lot more to sort of digest it and then turn it into something else. Is it hard for you to walk away from the subject matter? Like as you prepare for whatever’s next, or? Or is it something that you’re like, Okay, I’ve been steeped in loneliness for five years. And now I’m really excited to write I think about unicorns or whatever.

Kristen Radtke 11:53
I mean, with every other product I’ve ever worked on, yes, by the time the project is done, I’m like, I can’t talk about this or think about this anymore. But loneliness is so ingrained in who we are as human people, that it still feels like it’s on my mind. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I mentioned community earlier. My this book was about disconnection. My next book is really about connection, because I’m not done thinking through these problems in these questions.

Traci Thomas 12:18
Oh, my God. I’m so excited. Yeah, just really, you really perked me up at the end of the year here. I want to talk a second longer about the pandemic. And then I want to completely Yes. You mentioned the pandemic, like I said before, was there a reason why you chose not to dive deeper into that in the book? And hold back for this moment?

Kristen Radtke 12:40
Yeah, because I felt like it could go longer. You know, it’s easy when we talk about loneliness. I mean, really, it’s easy when we talk about any sort of societal problems right now to filter them through the lens of the pandemic, which is because that’s the reality we live in. But I wanted to separate the two things, because I don’t want to suggest that loneliness is a pandemic problem, right, like, the pandemic exacerbated feelings of loneliness, but it was it is not the cause of loneliness. And so that’s the main reason why Additionally, you know, I remember finishing copy edits for this book in in May of 2020. And while there was like, sirens outside my house, 24/7, and we were still on lockdown. And I just have no idea what it felt like, I can either say, This is what I think will happen during the pandemic, or in because of loneliness, or I can look back at like, hundreds of years of history, and and say, you know, kind of what that means, for us, you know, in this present moment, and going forward based on that.

Traci Thomas 13:36
Yeah, I’m glad you didn’t include more on the pandemic. Not that that matters. But for me, I just was like, I don’t know, I don’t I don’t need that, like this book has the book has said what needed to be said about loneliness. And the pandemic, like you said, is, is part of a much larger history of well, yes, and not, not the starting off point. So I’m sort of glad that you didn’t, because I feel like that would have let people off the hook in some ways. And by people, I mean, me, the person who I’m not really speaking for.

Kristen Radtke 14:07
No I mean, like, I also feel like there is a fair amount of like pandemic fatigue in terms of like reading about the pandemic, because it’s just like, it’s already so arduous and grueling to be inside of it, and has been, you know, for all of us to varying degrees, that it was just like, I felt like I didn’t have I need to synthesize information for longer like I wanted to look at things within a long term cultural context, rather than something that was still kind of unfolding around me.

Traci Thomas 14:33
Yeah, that makes total sense. You mentioned that your editor was like, we don’t want to make this too bleak. But I have to say, I did weep in the bathtub reading this book. I have very strong memories of reading this in the bathtub, which is like the most dangerous place to read a graphic book, but I couldn’t not read it and I really love taking baths so I was like, You know what, I was gonna do it. I love it. I have like such strong visual memories of the pages with the monkeys. In the bathtub, you just crying and being like, there’s too much water around. I’m just too emotional. I’m in water I’m trying. But it while the book is very, I felt very sad in parts. I also like you said, I did feel a little strangely hopeful. And again, less isolated than I thought that I would feel I sort of was like nervous about picking it up, because I was like, This is gonna be sad. And I don’t want to be sad. Yeah, it was sad. But it was also so interesting. Like, I just was like, I’m learning so much. I understand. Like, the just, it was like a major aha moment kind of book. I’m so glad I’m yeah, I’m so glad you wrote it. I do want to switch because we’re talking a lot about like the writing part of it. But it’s a graphic book, as we mentioned, and there’s incredible art and I have a lot of questions about the art and you’ll have to forgive me because I have read a total of four graphic anything’s in my life.

Kristen Radtke 15:53
Well, I’m very honored to be one of them.

Traci Thomas 15:56
Well, Mira Jacob was on the show earlier in the summer. And she recommended this book. And I was like, well, Mira is a genius. So let me just see. Let’s see how right she is. And she was so right. But I so I don’t have a huge scope of language to discuss this stuff. So you’ll have to kind of bear with me, but I want to know, first. I know, I’ve been reading your first book. I know you were into photography and art, you went to art school. But how did you come to this form of graphic nonfiction? Was it the art part that spoke to you first? Was it the writing part? Did you always want to write things like this?

Kristen Radtke 16:32
Yeah, definitely the writing. So I, you know, I was always writing I was always trying, it took me a while to figure out you could do them at the same time. But I you know, when I was kind of when I was working on my my first book, it initially I thought was just going to be prose. And then I was still in grad school at the time. And my last semester, I tried a comic. I was like, why don’t I just try drawing a comic I had, like, we just reread Alison Bechdel, his first book, or not her first book, but her first like, big book, are you my are Fun Home, excuse me? And I was like, why don’t I just try that that would be fun. And it took me so long. And I was like, that was an I loved making that. But I’ll never do it again. That was so arduous and hard. And then over time, it kind of like, you know, called to me from the drawer. And I finally came around to realizing that that’s the form that made the most sense to me. So it’s basically now it’s just, it’s just like, when I when I began to work in on as a writer, like when I began writing, as a student, I thought in paragraphs, and I kind of composed in that way. But now I think, like, as I’m working on kind of composing back and forth and thinking through how can I communicate this visually? How can I communicate this with text? So it’s just the form that really makes the most sense to me now,

Traci Thomas 17:42
I love that. What do you wish more people understood about graphic books?

Kristen Radtke 17:47
That they’re as serious as prose books. Like, I feel like sometimes there’s this bias against them. Or that there’s, there’s a misunderstanding about the breadth of graphic books, like some people have a certain sort of idea in their mind about like a comic book or something like that. And that is a part of the form. But there’s so much there’s such a variety happening in there. So I also I also want people to realize that even if they don’t have a lot of experience with graphic books, they can still glean a lot from them. I think sometimes there’s like this intimidation about trying something new. But graphic books are really approachable, which is why I mean, comics are for everyone. Graphic books are for everyone. And so I think people just need to kind of just like, feel it out. See how see if you like it, you know, just give it a chance.

Traci Thomas 18:34
Yeah, I think you’re right, they are for everyone. I was super intimidated, because I am not a person. I always say like, I don’t like art, which isn’t true, but I say that sort of as an asshole. But like, I went to NYU, and we had to go to the Met and like write about things and like.

Kristen Radtke 18:51
like, a dirty secret about me is that I don’t even like going to museums, I need to buy seminar director for a job. You know, like, my whole life is about art. And I’m like, boring.

Traci Thomas 18:59
You’re validating me. Thank you so much. But it’s true. Like, I think I was approaching graphic books like, oh, I have to understand the art and the words and I have to have an opinion about both things that needs to mean something. And I think once I just started reading them, I was like, oh, it’s easy to have an opinion about both things that mean something because it works together. It’s not two separate things. And I think that was really helpful for me. Just like trying, you know, as I said, I’ve read for so as an expert in this field, you’re an expert, you’re a scholar, they’ve all been really different though, which is so which is what I’ve really appreciated. Obviously, every book is different from each other, but seeing the way that the words are placed on the page and the colors or lack of or the style of the art like I mean obviously thinking of mirror as book versus your book, there are so visually different. It’s almost crazy to call them the same type. Right and literally, and so I love that and the other one we did on the show earlier this year was The Best We Could Do, I was gonna give a totally different title. And that book is also so visually different than both of your so like, I I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of graphic books now that I’ve read for because I’m like, oh my god, like, there’s so much possibility here. And there is yeah, it’s just so cool. And so in your first book, there’s like, no color. But in your second book and seek you, you are doing really, like deliberate things with the colors that you’re allowing in. And I would love for you to talk about the colors in this book for a second.

Kristen Radtke 20:36
Absolutely. First of all, thank you for saying that. It’s deliberate. That means a lot. I’m not sure that it always is. Because this was my first foray into color. And it colors so hard. I mean, color is like its own language, and you put, you put on one color next to another color. And suddenly that first color is totally different. And there’s like a new argument or mood being being sort of placed on the page with those colors. And it was just really hard I, I took, like, I took like some continuing education class in color theory. And I remember like walking in the first day being like, this is gonna fix everything. And then like, I walked out of that classroom the first day and never went back, because I was just like, I can’t do this, this is too stressful. And I just slowly over time, like started, like looking at a lot of color palettes and like reading books about color, and it slowly started to make sense to me within the limited way that I used it in this book, every time I approach a project in color, it’s like, I kind of have to start from scratch to figure out what the colors are. But that was that was one of the harder parts of the book. But one of in the end, one of the more rewarding parts was was seeing it turn out in color in front of me and kind of like by miracle.

Traci Thomas 21:43
Do you know how you decided which color went with each section? Was it was it was there like a process there? Or was it like this feels right?

Kristen Radtke 21:55
It was more of a feeling. I mean, I think in general comics are about that’s one of the things I was gonna say earlier, when you were talking about how like, if I don’t understand the drawings or something, it felt intimidating to enter graphic book. But it’s like the whole point of comics is just to communicate, like a feeling. And so that for that reason, like comics, artists supposed to be very approachable, even when it’s like complicated. It’s just meant to put you in a in a particular place or mood. And I actually with tea boy, I did this event with her once and we were talking about how the artists Gabrielle Belle was also there who’s wonderful. And we were talking about, I was saying that I never know how to draw shadows properly. I was like I can never make make shadows go the right direction. I don’t understand light at all, which is true. And Gabrielle said something like, who cares? Like, it’s just about the feeling. And she seemed like, like, shocked that I like cared so much about the shadow. And ever since then it kind of opened something up for me to think about like, and same thing with the color. It’s it was just about getting a feeling on the page. And then and kind of following it from there and trusting that if the feeling felt right, then I was doing the right thing, or making the right choices.

Traci Thomas 23:01
I love that. Anything that frees artists up is like my favorite thing in the world. Because it’s so hard to create. I think people don’t understand. I think people who don’t create, don’t understand how hard it is to create and the ways that artists make themselves sick, overlook things. And then hearing someone be like, Why do you care? This is fine. It’s all about the feeling. And you’re like, right, yeah, feel free, I can do it again. I know, art is hard.

Kristen Radtke 23:30
And also feelings are hard. And, you know, that was one of the challenging things about the book too was like following a feeling and trusting that it was like taking me where I needed it to go. And then doing a lot of that, like, mental and emotional work to puzzle out the problems and the questions. And I don’t just mean in terms of the color. I mean, in terms of, you know, like the themes and the you know, as I was making a lot of statements and connections about loneliness, I was connecting like two different things that hadn’t really been connected like an scholarship or anything like that. So it also required, like, kind of like a closing my eyes and jumping and feeling comfortable to do the thing that was pretty scary for me was to like put these put these opinions forth like with some semblance of I don’t know, like confidence or authority.

Right? Right. Yeah, like saying I am able to make these points. Yeah, me this person. Yeah. Doesn’t just this one. Yeah. What do you are there any things that are not in the book that you wish were in the book?

I mean, I think the book could have been I could have kept writing about loneliness for a long time. You know, I thought I would write about a lot about like robots. I thought I would write a lot more about technology. And I’m glad I didn’t in that regard. But there’s definitely things that didn’t that weren’t said that I had been thinking through. I also I wanted to investigate boredom a lot more for me Eat loneliness and boredom are very tied together. Because if I’m feeling fulfilled in what I’m doing, it’s hard to feel lonely. Interesting. And so I started reading a lot of important but not surprisingly, it’s really boring to read. Yeah. So I never really figured out how to write about boredom in like, a way that was interesting. Maybe that will be a future book.

Traci Thomas 25:19
Oh my gosh, please write an unboring book about boredom. So you have another full time job. You are an art director at the verge. How did you make time to write this book?

Kristen Radtke 25:38
It’s really hard. I wrote this book while I was the art director at the believer magazine. And I started the job with a verge earlier this year. But I it’s a challenge. I mean, I, I think I find a different schedule that works for me, depending on where I’m at in the project and where I’m at, in my job, like at the verge I tried to write in the morning before work, which is sometimes possible. Not, especially because I just need a minute to like, come into my brain. And so a lot of times I find that the I’m finally doing that, right when it’s like time for my first meeting for work. And, you know, so I will say that I have not yet figured it out with in this new job. But I in general, I would say it’s a constant reimagining of like what a day is going to be or like I’m constantly kind of checking in with myself and making sure I’m making enough time for, for writing but I think that’s the big to me, that’s probably the biggest challenge of being an artist is is protecting the time I need to make art.

Traci Thomas 26:37
How do you like to write if you if you’re writing? Ideally, where are you? How many hours a day? Do you have music or no music? Do you have snacks and beverages? That part’s important? Do you have candles rituals, like what’s your writing setup?

Kristen Radtke 26:53
I mean, in an ideal world, if we’re dreaming big, I would love to be in like a castle on the ocean, okay with someone like giving me food whenever I need it and not having any other responsibilities. Okay, that would be great. Like I whenever I’ve had a chance to go to a writing residency, it’s like, my wife feels complete my my thinking feels completely transformed to like, get out of my own space. At home in my nan Castle apartment, I am really lucky to have a dedicated space for writing and drawing. The problem is that I share that also with the space for my day job so that gets a little bit conflated. But I my partner built this L shaped desk for me that goes right in the corner and so I try to use one half for my books and one half for my job but still like it gets a little bit murky but I like to have as long I mean if I can have the whole day that’s great. Usually I can only find about two hours in a day. But the main thing is like I get really distracted like any any little sounds so I have like I have usually like noise cancelling headphones or earplugs and then like a sound machine and like I’m very strict do not disturbed orders from my partner to not knock on the door.

Traci Thomas 28:04
Wow, what about snacks and beverages?

Kristen Radtke 28:07
I have to have water by me at all times no matter what I’m doing or I like terrified that I’m going to be thirsty but I snacks our snacks definitely are in the distraction category like I can maybe have like Wasabi peas or something like that but like if I if I want to like eat something more I really have to take a break or my especially with drawing like my fingers just get like gross.

Traci Thomas 28:28
That makes sense. I’ll give you I’ll give you a pass on snacks then because element because normally I hound people about snacks but I actually love what wasabi pee and I don’t think in my four years of doing the show anyone has ever brought it up as a snack. So congratulations.

Kristen Radtke 28:43
It feels like a perfect writing snack because it’s like every time you eat it one it’s like a little jolt of being like pay attention. Like not and it’s like fast you you don’t have to look at it when you think that’s key for a snack because that you can like put your hand into the bowl without looking.

Traci Thomas 28:59
Yes, this is so you don’t know this but the episode that’s gonna air tomorrow, the guests talks about having eating all only exclusively foods you don’t have to look at that’s their jam. Okay, do you have different rituals around writing and drawing? Like, do you have a different outfit that you wear when you’re in your drying moments or a different lighting or anything like that? Or is it all sort of one in the same to you?

Kristen Radtke 29:25
I would say that in terms of rituals, I need a lot more concentration to write than I do to draw okay, like I can I can like have a car I can like call my mom and or my dad and talk to them on the phone or like kind of do any of those things I can have the radio on or something when I’m driving and when I’m writing that’s just like completely impossible.

Traci Thomas 29:43
Interesting. What’s a word you can never spell correctly on the first try?

Kristen Radtke 29:47
Most of them can vary. I’m a terrible speller.

Traci Thomas 29:53
Surprisingly, almost every writer is a bad speller. It’s what I found out which is shocking to me.

Kristen Radtke 29:59
Well, it’s just like Like the route that rules don’t make sense to me. And I think maybe that’s part of it is like in writing. We’re trying to make language work in the way we want it to work, not in the way that we were like failed spelling tests.

Traci Thomas 30:12
Yeah. Okay. I’m curious. I asked you this about graphic books. But I didn’t ask you this about loneliness. But what do you wish more people understood about loneliness?

Kristen Radtke 30:24
I guess how the fact kind of what I talked about earlier, where were the fact that it’s, there’s a biological reason behind it, and it’s something that we need to listen to. So I think one of the scariest things about loneliness? Well, there’s a million scary things about loneliness. I mean, one of the things we haven’t chatted about this cheery topic, since we’ve started this conversation is that loneliness is physically dangerous for us, when we’re in long term states of loneliness, we are less likely to be able to fight disease, we’re more likely to have heart attacks, we’re more likely to get cancer, we die prematurely. It’s really, really terrifying and harrowing and gruesome. And so I think the main thing that I wish people understood is that loneliness is a health emergency, it’s a crisis. And so when we’re moving towards a place where people are more and more isolated, like every survey, basically, throughout, you know, every five to 10 years, the levels of loneliness in America are increasing. So that’s really a huge problem and something we need to devote a lot of resources to on, like the governmental and healthcare level. So I think that’s a that’s a big one.

Traci Thomas 31:25
Do you think that that is connected to the physical and emotional feeling of pain like that our bodies are more susceptible to physical issues, if we’re having emotional, painful issues?

Kristen Radtke 31:42
So it’s, it depends on I guess, it depends on what scientists you ask. Okay. I mean, basically, it’s like what as we’re when we’re in a state of kind of unfulfillment. And we have that we have like, things like cortisol spikes in our brain, like a stress or stress hormone goes out of control when we’re lonely. And so like, that’s really dangerous, like cortisol building up, if you remember, like, in the late 90s, early 2000s, it was like stress is the new smoking stressful period, stress will kill you. Like loneliness, the response to loneliness in our bodies is almost exactly the same as stress. Wow. So that’s, I think, like, kind of first, I think that’s really essential to understand, I would say the other essential thing is that is understanding the difference between loneliness and aloneness, or loneliness and solitude, because they’re not always related. You can be really lonely and be constantly surrounded by people, or you can be totally fulfilled and see, like one person a month.

Traci Thomas 32:31
And how does loneliness work? I think about this a lot about emotions, and also even physical things like pain, is that everything is so dependent on each person? Is there like a clinical way to define loneliness? Or is it sort of like the patient or the person says, I’m feeling lonely.

Kristen Radtke 32:50
So there’s this thing called the UCLA, loneliness scale, UCLA? Wow, that’s talking about things I can’t say, UCLA loneliness scale, which was developed in the 70s, and has been refined a lot over the years. But it’s basically a survey that you fill out and you rank yourself in answer to these questions, like one through five, and then you tally it up, and then your doctor tells you if you’re lonely or not. So that’s, if you do like a study about loneliness, if you participate in a study, where they’re doing like control, like doing control groups, people who aren’t only against people who are to see how they behave in certain settings, or to see what happens with their health, like you have to score a certain percentage on this test.

Traci Thomas 33:29
Hmm, interesting. Okay, I have another question about the art part. I’m really all over the place in this interview. I feel like I said this. Before we started, I had had a hard time talking about this book, because I loved it so much. And because it does so many different things. I’ve actually, as a person who talks about books been struggling to wring my brain into a more linear place when I think about it, which makes sense because the book has so many different elements, you know, and I’m just like, not used to that. So I’m sort of having this like, panic, because I want to talk about everything. And I’m like, Oh, my God, wait, we haven’t talked. But that being said, I want to talk about the cover, because the cover is I sort of thought this book was gonna be a funny book. I don’t know why. But the cover is like, it’s lovely. But it’s also like the pink. I don’t know it was it gives me that hopeful vibe that you mentioned. Yeah, it is a little bit like, I don’t know, maybe this is a me problem also, where sometimes I decide something looks like something even though I have all the clues that it is not that we talked about this on the Song of Solomon episode where I was like, this book is super hopeful. And everyone’s like, everybody’s dead. Yeah, exactly. This happens to me constantly. But I’m curious about how with a book that is full of art, how you decide what art is the art that is on the outside, because a book that’s all prose, it’s like, okay, this image is The only one, but with a book that’s full of images, how do you as the artist decide what you want to present on the outside?

Kristen Radtke 35:09
I think it’s, for me, it’s totally impossible. Like I, you know, I designed the cover, Pantheon always likes it when their graphic novelist is designed to cover that I really did not want to design the cover because it was so it’s so hard to do that what the cover image was the like, the cover image is basically a modification and like an expansion on an interior image, which was selected by the this great designer at Pantheon named Kelly Blair. And I probably would not, I definitely would not have selected it had she not pointed it out. It’s like I kind of had to see it through fresh eyes. And then and then once she was like, what about this image, I can kind of work from there and figure out how it how it worked on a jacket.

Traci Thomas 35:48
It’s so interesting that you needed like an extra person to be like, this is the thing?

Kristen Radtke 35:54
It’s a it’s a different, you know, it’s like, how do you if you’ve been inside something for like four or five years, how could you possibly figure out on your own how it needed to be represented in one image, like, you have too much information in your head and you’re too close to it. It’s like, by that point, like, what I want is something that can’t exist, because I’m like seeing every single part of the book, you know, right. It just, it’s just too difficult. I think like, it’s one of the reasons that you really needed a team of people working on a book. It can’t be a single person’s endeavor.

Traci Thomas 36:27
You’re too inside it. Yeah. Are like and too emotionally connected to things like No, it has to be this and everyone else is like, what are you talking about? Yeah. I love I always joke, I’m like, as a person who has my own business, and I’m in charge of so many things. I love being told what to do now. Yeah. Oh, this is what you want. Great. This, we could do just someone direct me.

Kristen Radtke 36:48
Just swimming around? And like the possibilities of everything all the time?

Traci Thomas 36:51
Yeah, it’s such a good point. That’s such a good point. As someone who has been deep in the loneliness, whales you’ve been reading, you’ve been thinking about it, you’ve been writing about it drawing about it. Have you changed your approach to relationships in your life? Where people seem lonely? Or have expressed loneliness? Have you come up with ways to be helpful? Because I know for me, I am always really nervous about connecting with people who I feel like are in a bad place. Yeah, especially if it’s like a lonely sort of place. So I’m wondering if you’ve got any tools that you’ve gleaned from all this work?

Kristen Radtke 37:30
Yeah, that’s a great question. So basically, the one of the dangerous parts about loneliness is that when we enter a state, it’s called hyper vigilance is what scientists call it when you’re in a long term state of loneliness, and to the point where basically, what happens is your brain and your body starts to interpret strangers or new experiences as threatening. And that’s like a, like, sort of like a glitch and like our lizard brains from evolution. And so basically, it’s kind of like, if you’re feeling like rejected, you’re less likely to reach out to somebody else, because you’re like, well, nobody likes me anyway, I’m just going to stay home and watch TV. And I’m not going to, you know, and like, why hasn’t Jessica texted me to hang out, like, I’m not going to text us because she doesn’t want to hear from me. And it’s like, you end up in this in this sort of loop where then you’re not, you’re not reaching out to anyone. And then in return, no one is reaching out to you. And so I try to recognize that when I see people that I love in that state, where they’re maybe making assumptions about someone else is interested in spending time with them, or someone else’s availability based on kind of where they are emotionally. And so I that my main thing is, is when I see someone kind of retreating into themselves or closing up for long periods of time, in particular, I try to be like a little bit relentless about, what are you up to, you want to do this, you want to do that, and like checking in on them a lot, even when I’m not getting a lot of feedback back. Because I think there are moments where we’re not in a place where we, you know, we’re going through a period of depression or loneliness, where we’re not really in a place where we can give back in a relationship in an equitable and equal way. And so I try to hang out in that state for longer, whereas before, I might have given up sooner until someone can kind of make their way out.

Traci Thomas 39:14
That’s actually really great advice and helpful to hear because like the rejection part of it, too, if like, you’re reaching out to someone, yeah, they’re not, then you have your response exaction. And like, well, I don’t want to reach out.

Kristen Radtke 39:26
Which is why I’m saying loneliness is actually contagious. And like scientists have discovered that like, because we tend to self isolate. When we feel lonely, we can actually transmit loneliness up to three degrees removed from us.

Traci Thomas 39:40
And as you mentioned before, loneliness and being alone or solitude are two different things. Or is there like either, like cures for loneliness, but are there things that you would tell people who are experiencing loneliness to do because it’s not just enough to like go to the grocery store and be there people like, right, or like ways to shock the system out of it does that exist.

Kristen Radtke 40:03
You know, this is my this was like the big thing I wanted to understand and figure out and I do not know this, like science really hasn’t figured out the solution to this problem, which is why I think that we need to invest so much more in understanding and the study of loneliness, because we really don’t know. And part of that problem is that like, we shouldn’t be making interventions at a late stage when someone’s already lonely, we it’s about building, it’s about building like a system of support from day one, or from before you’re even born. Which is, which is why things like mutual aid and community engagement are so essential, because they need it reinforces the idea that we’re all responsible for each other and for our neighbors. And I think once those systems kind of start to fall away, is when we find ourselves without an without a social net. And that’s really, when we get into a frightening place.

Traci Thomas 40:55
You’ve actually made me more scared about loneliness than I was when I finished the book today. So congratulations, I’m like, I lonely. Do I need to get help? Like, I just like feeling stressed, all of a sudden.

Kristen Radtke 41:05
We’re all a little bit lonely all the time.

Traci Thomas 41:07
I think so too. And I do think that while the pandemic isn’t anything new, as far as, as far as being lonely is concerned, it has made it feel more acute, perhaps absolutely the place.

Kristen Radtke 41:19
And even though a lot of us are have have sort of gotten back to our normal lives, it’s not the same, like we’re not we’re not gathering in the same frequency, at least not in my life. And I’m not, you know, going into the office with regularity and doing all these things that that we’re such a part of, of every day. And that does freak me out a little bit. Because I’m like, When will this will this ever happen?

Traci Thomas 41:40
Right? And it’s also it’s not just not doing those things, but it’s also the stress of doing those things. Now, you know, it’s like, I’m not going to sporting events, which are things that I used to love to do. But I did go to a baseball game and was so stressed out the whole time that I was like, this is actually this sucks. Like, this is not worth my time, energy or money.

Kristen Radtke 42:03
Like I don’t know, is it like COVID stress, or was it stress?

Traci Thomas 42:07
No, it was COVID stress. It was like, Oh, I’m too close to people. Also, just like there’s too many people here like, yeah, like, what is this moment? And so I think that’s part of it, too. Like Thanksgiving was stressful this year, and we had eight people and it was, and five of them live in my home. It was like what’s happening? Okay, I just have two more questions for you. One is for folks who love seek you. What are some other books you might recommend to them?

Kristen Radtke 42:33
Well if you want to read about loneliness, there’s a number of books I would recommend, I would really recommend the lonely city by Olivia Lange, at pretty much everyone who had ever read that book after they read my book is like, have you read it only city by like, yes, it’s very good. It’s very good. But it’s totally brilliant. And then there’s also a book about loneliness that was like my primer to be introduced to the whole subject by Dr. John Cassio. Bo, who was basically the pioneer of loneliness research, he died just a couple of years ago, much earlier than he should have, he was quite young. But he, he just he really was the first person to take loneliness study seriously. And it happened like, you know, during the course of my lifetime, so that shows how young woman is researches and I think he’s really a great place to start.

Traci Thomas 43:22
Wow. Okay. And then if you this is the last one. If you could have one person dead or alive, read this book, who would you want it to be?

Kristen Radtke 43:31
Honestly, it was like, probably my dad. And he I dedicated the book to him. And he didn’t read it. And that was really nice. I guess other than my dad like Obama, probably.

Traci Thomas 43:45
Those are two great people. I ever write a book, I would want my dad and Obama to read it. Yeah. I’m with you on that. Well, Kristen, thank you so much for doing this. The book is Seek You. It is out in the world. You can get it wherever you get your books, I highly recommend it. Especially if you’re looking for a last minute holiday gift for someone in your life who maybe likes to think about the world around them. It’s sort of an interesting and very cool way to do that. So check out the book wherever you get your books. Kristen, thank you so much for being here.

Kristen Radtke 44:13
Thank you so much, Traci.

Traci Thomas 44:14
And everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Thank you all so much for listening and thank you to Kristen for being my guest and also like to thank Michael Tompkins for helping to facilitate this interview. Remember the stats book club pick for December is A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib. We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, December 29 with Andrew Ti. If you love the show and want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join The Stacks Pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you’re listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks, follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram at thestackspod_ on Twitter and check out our website thestackspodcast.com. This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Megan Caballero
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