Love in Exile

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‘We ache for love, but love eludes us. Out of this crisis comes so much of what it means to be human’

Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destructive, counterfeit versions of the real love she craved: addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric and fantastical, or excruciatingly painful and unhinged, often both. Faye’s experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears. But, as she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she came to realize that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture.

Love, she argues, is as much a collective question as a personal one. Yet our collective ideals of love have developed in a society which is itself profoundly sick and loveless; in which consumer capitalism sells us ever new, engrossing fantasies of becoming more loved or lovable. In this highly politicized terrain, boundaries are purposefully drawn to keep some in and to keep others out. Those who exist outside them are ignored, denigrated, exiled.

In Love in Exile, Shon Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them. Wise, funny, unsparing, and suffused with a radical clarity, this is a book of and for our times: for seeing and knowing love, in whatever form it takes, is the meaning of life itself.

'Uncommonly wise and honest. Love in Exile flooded me with a sense of continuity and hope. A masterpiece, from start to finish' - Maggie Nelson

'Seamlessly blending memoir and social theory...Faye examines the elision of love, validation and addiction with such lucidity as to knock the wind out of you.' - The Standard

'An account of how and why we define our own self-worth in terms of love. Faye has a perspective and style that is distinctly her own but offers insight and enlightenment that is appealingly universal.' - Vogue,'Best Books of 2025'

©2025 Shon Faye (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Faye sets out to deconstruct her topics through thoroughly researched and accessibly delivered political and social theory, providing radical ways of thinking... her discussions are expansive and wholly empathetic...The weaving through of memoir is equally compelling... The greatest strength of Love in Exile, though, is Faye's optimism. She is resolute in her belief that human beings are capable of great compassion, both to each other and ourselves.
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