The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day

The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day

This inspiring and fascinating memoir, subtitled, "The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist," The Long Loneliness is the late Dorothy Day's compelling autobiographical testament to her life of social activism and her spiritual pilgrimage. A founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and longtime associate of Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day was eulogized in the New York Times as, "a nonviolent social radical of luminous personality." The Long Loneliness recounts her remarkable journey from the Greenwich Village political and literary scene of the 1920s through her conversion to Catholicism and her lifelong struggle to help bring about "the kind of society where it is easier to be good."

Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social crusader, and fervent Catholic convert who lived from 1897 to 1980. She founded the Catholic Worker in 1933 with Peter Maurin, a community dedicated to direct relief for the poor and homeless, solidarity with the dispossessed, and social transformation. Day took part in labor fights in the 1930s, the Civil Rights movement, and nonviolent, pacifist opposition to militarism in WWII, Vietnam, and the Cold War, and her claim for canonization in the Catholic Church is still pending. Robert Ellsberg was a member of Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker community in New York City for the last five years of her life (1975-80), serving as managing editor of The Catholic Worker for two years. He is also the author of All Saints and the editor of Dorothy Day: Collected Writings and All the Way to Heaven: Dorothy Day's Selected Letters.