A review by cwalsh
Everybody by Olivia Laing
4.0
Everybody essentially follows the same format as The Lonely City - part memoir and part biography woven together with cultural criticism - except here Laing focuses on bodily freedom and autonomy rather than art and loneliness.
I was reluctant to pick this up because (1) I was not thrilled with Funny Weather and (2) I never in a million years thought I would give a shit about the psychoanalysis angle of this book (Wilhelm Reich, Freud's protege, is the interconnecting link between each section). Topics of mental and physical illness, eugenics, feminism, gay liberation, rape, and abortion are discussed among many artists and activists but never with any judgement and in true Laing form, with subtle empathy.
I was reluctant to pick this up because (1) I was not thrilled with Funny Weather and (2) I never in a million years thought I would give a shit about the psychoanalysis angle of this book (Wilhelm Reich, Freud's protege, is the interconnecting link between each section). Topics of mental and physical illness, eugenics, feminism, gay liberation, rape, and abortion are discussed among many artists and activists but never with any judgement and in true Laing form, with subtle empathy.