Author(s): Olivia Laing

Non-Fiction | Marianne's Book Talkers

LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2022.  The body is a source of pleasure and of pain, at once hopelessly vulnerable and radiant with power.   At a moment in which basic rights are once again imperilled, Olivia Laing conducts an ambitious investigation into the body and its discontents, using the life of the renegade psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich to chart a daring course through the long struggle for bodily freedom, from gay rights and sexual liberation to feminism and the civil rights movement. 

Drawing on her own experiences in protest and alternative medicine, and travelling from Weimar Berlin to the prisons of McCarthy-era America, she grapples with some of the most significant and complicated figures of the past century, among them Nina Simone, Christopher Isherwood, Andrea Dworkin, Sigmund Freud, Susan Sontag and Malcolm X.

Despite its many burdens, the body remains a source of power, even in an era as technologized and automated as our own. "Everybody" is an examination of the forces arranged against freedom and a celebration of how ordinary human bodies can resist oppression and reshape the world.

'A free-wheeling and joyful exploration of the works and lives of a range of artists and thinkers who brought libidinal and creative energy together with spectacular results' - Jack Halberstam.  'A brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art', Telegraph.

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: MARIANNE

A new Olivia Laing is always a treat, and this wide-ranging exploration of bodies and freedom is no exception.

Laing is one of the most agile and interesting critics and writers working today, but what I love most about their work is that they explore the world through such a compellingly human lens. Whether examining the work and life of discredited (but fascinating!) psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the music of Nina Simone, the grid paintings of Agnes Martin, or life in Berlin between the wars, Laing draws inspired and thoughtful connections between artists, ideas, and eras, all while pondering what it might mean to be a body – capable of thought, pleasure, pain, oppression, and freedom – moving through history and life.

P.S., for extra credit, try Laing’s recent collection of art and culture criticism, Funny Weather. A treasure trove of interesting gems!