Our Souls At Night

Our Souls at Night opens with Addie proposing that she and Louis spend their nights together, and she is motivated to do this because she is lonely and knows that Louis is, too. Addie tells him, “I mean we’re both alone. We’ve been by ourselves for too long. For years. I’m lonely. I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk” (5). Addie is brave to voice her unusual solution, but her unconventional gesture highlights the depth of her loneliness that drives her to take this step. Addie’s and Louis’s situations are shared by many elderly Americans: Their spouses have died and their children have moved away, leaving them with empty hours and no one to talk to. Addie feels that her sense of isolation becomes amplified at nighttime and is compounded by her trouble sleeping. She feels she “could sleep again if there were someone else in bed with [her]. Someone nice. The closeness of that. Talking in the night, in the dark” (5-6). Addie believes that her sleeplessness, too, stems from her loneliness, and she is right about this, as she manages to fall asleep quickly whenever Louis is beside her.