The Opposite of Loneliness : Essays and Stories

An affecting and hope-filled posthumous collection of essays and stories from the talented young Yale graduate whose title essay captured the world's attention in 2012 and turned her into an icon for her generation. Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated "magna cum laude" from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at "The New Yorker." Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. As her family, friends, and classmates, deep in grief, joined to create a memorial service for Marina, her deeply moving last essay for "The Yale Daily News," "The Opposite of Loneliness," went viral, receiving more than 1.4 million hits. Even though she was just twenty-two when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation. Her short story "Cold Pastoral" was published by NewYorker.com just months after her death. "The Opposite of Loneliness "is an assemblage of Marina's essays and stories, which, like "The Last Lecture," articulate the universal struggle that all of us face as we figure out what we aspire to be, and how we can harness our talents to impact the world.The Opposite of Loneliness --Cold pastoral --Winter break --Reading aloud --The ingenue --The Emerald City --Baggage claim --Hail, full of grace --Sclerotherapy --Challenger deep --Stability in motion --Why we care about whales --Against the grain --Putting the "fun" back in eschatology --I kill for money --Even artichokes have doubts --The art of observation --Song for the special --A rembrance of Marina Keegan and questions for further discussion