The liberal, left-of-centre Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is worried that his country is becoming ‘an island of strangers’. I think he’s right to be concerned, although probably not for the same reasons. While he seemed to be referring to a tendency amongst immigrants to form sub-cultures and communities (called ‘ghettos’, when the immigrants are poorer and darker-skinned), I think the problem lies elsewhere. It lies in the Prime Minister’s pocket. Just like it does in every one of ours.

Yep, it’s the socials.

We’ve had years of research showing how social media algorithms create bubbles of isolation — islands of strangers — to exploit every twitch of our unblinking eyes. They have monopolised our attention, hijacked our economies, captured our regulators. They have convinced us that we’re most connected with the world when we’re alone in the dark, staring at a little screen. It is no longer enough to call it a crisis. It’s a catastrophe. They aren’t unravelling the fabric of society; they have torn it to shreds and set fire to it, replaced it with a plastic shroud of misinformation. If there is no sense of community today, it is not because the darker people talk in funny accents and don’t hang out at Great British flag-draped pubs. It’s because all we know about them comes from fake reels and staged TikToks designed to keep us from talking to them — or anyone else, for that matter. Because every second we spend talking to an actual human being is a second that can’t be monetised by the social platforms.

The good news? It’s not impossible to fight this. All it takes is looking up.

Narrated in the first-person by the author, it begins:

I was forty years old when I reached the middle of the big lake. My life had grown stale: my offspring had flown the nest, my other half was ill and my writing, which had kept me busy until then, was more than a little iffy. I was carrying something bitter within. me, completing the invisibility that befalls women over forty. I didn\’t want to be seen, but nor did I want to see. I\’d had it with people, the looks on their faces and their well-meant advice. I sank to the bottom.

The rest of the book is a journey back from this bottom.

Giving up on her writing career, the author trains as a chiropodist and begins working in a Marzahn clinic. Her clients and colleagues are longtime residents who have lived through a world war, the fall of communism, the techno-blasted nihilism of the nineties. From the foot of her pink chair she gets an intimate look at them, hearing their stories and learning about their lives, from the deepest sorrows to the silliest sparks of joy. Like the lives of these others, the intricate vignettes come together to form a collective portrait of a community left for dead but sparkling with life. Through the simple acts of seeing, hearing, touching other people, the narrator-author slowly rebuilds her connection to society, to humanity. And she does it with a love that flows through the pages and seeps right into your soul.

To anyone who feels isolated, disconnected, embittered by the thought of living on an island of strangers: you might find hope in this book. It shows that all it often takes is not to be a stranger yourself.

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