EH: In Seek You, you write about American loneliness as built out of specific cultural ideologies. Can you talk a bit about the connection you draw between American individualism and loneliness?

AL: The American outsider, the sort of underdog hero, is so foundational to how we tell stories in America. I write a lot about America’s obsession with cowboys, which is totally ridiculous. Cowboys basically didn’t exist. Certainly not the way that they’re portrayed in film. That led me to write about antihero male TV protagonists, who are really just the cowboys of today. The Don Draper types. It’s the same trope over and over and over again. We glorify these people who are self-isolated out of some confused superiority.

In America we’re trained not to bother each other, not to ask for help, not to extend help; this conservative ideology of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps is absurd. It’s easy for us to think that self-sufficiency is possible, but that’s a total fallacy. It goes beyond the fact that we need each other to acquire food and shelter. We also need each other to reinforce our humanity. We need someone there who’s checking us if we start to spiral, or get depressed, or have a stupid idea, or a dangerous idea. We need someone to say, “That sounds like a dangerous idea. Why don’t we talk about that and what’s really going on.” The pandemic is another example: the debates about mask-wearing and other precautions when many Americans were saying, “I’m only responsible for myself.” That’s just inaccurate.