The Long Loneliness is Dorothy Day's memoir. As a member of the National Women's Hall of Fame, she was a highly recognized person. In her younger years, Day became a social activist and journalist, bringing her passion for the outsiders and the lonely in relationship with her Christian faith. She converts to Catholicism after her daughter is born and founds the Catholic Worker Movement with Peter Maurin. All of these achievements stem from a remarkable life of risk-taking and self-sacrifice which Day outlines humbly in order to teach her reader why she could possibly accomplish so much. Her message is love.
Associated with radicals in college, Day was a bit of an outsider even then. She grew up reading the Bible, but not because her family was in any way religious. She wanted to. Among the radical socialists and other activist groups, she found people she related with on an ideological level, but her religion kept her somewhat at a distance. After dropping out of school to write, Day became a journalist second, and a volunteer activist first. It was a simple lifestyle.
By the time she had worked through several heartbreaks and a couple marriages, Day met a Catholic nun who converted her to Catholicism, along with her daughter. This phase of life is characterized by a unique fulfillment to the questions Day states earlier in the text. In the church and in her activist work among immigrants, she finds a solution to her loneliness. The community around her teaches her love and compassion in new, unavoidable ways, even as she is giving and loving on them. In the end, this love which Day finds at the union of faith and service is the force which fills the void and ends her wanderings. She is wasn't done being lonely, but she did learn that there was a solution -- community.
