The Dangers of Loneliness

The narrative is initiated by, and becomes driven by, the author’s investigation of the dangers of loneliness. In the first chapter, journalist Billy Baker is assigned to write an article on those dangers. As a result of engaging in broad-based research, he discovers that loneliness has a wide range of physical and psycho-emotional consequences. He also comes to realize that in his own life, he runs the risk of encountering both sorts of consequences – not because he experiences himself as lonely, with a wife and two relatively young sons, but because he experiences himself as having a lack of friends.

As he documents his exploration of both loneliness and friendship, Baker includes a significant amount of research-based evidence that evoke the book’s perspective on how dangerous loneliness can be. That evidence demonstrates, as referenced above, that loneliness can have a range of consequences...