Kristen Radtke’s drawings resemble movie stills. We peer into a bedroom window, where a woman watches TV alone, her face lit by the screen. The camera zooms out to reveal three additional solitary figures, each illuminated by their TVs and framed by their apartment windows. Once more, the image expands. We’re looking at a street of apartment windows—a tapestry of loneliness.

These images could form the thesis of Radtke’s new nonfiction graphic novel, Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness. We’re not alone in feeling alone.

“I hope [readers] see it as a hopeful project, and that it encourages them to listen to their loneliness and to make connections,” Radtke says in a phone interview. “The argument of the book is that we need one another, and we need to rely on and depend on and support one another. So I hope it encourages them to do that.”

Seek You explores the American myths and values that separate us (cowboy ideals, tract homes) and our often-feeble efforts to connect (television laugh tracks, paid cuddle companions). Radtke mixes in elements of memoir. For example, her taciturn father’s love of ham radio reveals his humanity to her. It also is the source of the book’s title. The phrase “Seek You” is born from amateur radio. “A CQ call is reaching outward, an attempt to make a connection across a wavelength with someone you’ve never met,” Radtke writes.

Seek You explores the science behind loneliness, including heartbreaking research on primates put into extreme isolation. Spoiler alert: They didn’t fare well, nor do isolated humans. Radtke says researching loneliness revealed its harsh consequences. “I didn’t understand how dangerous loneliness is, which is extremely dangerous,” Radtke says. “All these studiesdemonstrate that people who are lonely die younger than people who aren’t, that being chronically lonely really inhibits our ability to fight disease—cancer, infection, all kinds of things like that. It has an enormous impact on our health.”

But this is not a pandemic book. Radtke began the project several years before the era of lockdowns, although she did add an introduction that touches upon the topic. “Loneliness is a social and cultural problem that has existed since long before the pandemic and will exist for long after,” Radtke says. “The pandemic exposed a lot of problems or heightened a lot of problems that were already there.”

As both a writer and an artist, Radtke is doubly talented. The words and illustrations in Seek You each make the other more powerful. “I was always writing, and I was always drawing. Then I thought, What happens if I do these at the same time?” Radtke says. “I don’t think there’s one particular way to tell a story. You just have to use the tools available to you. For me, I think best when I engage with images and text at the same time.”

Radtke makes her work digitally on Adobe Illustrator, calling it a “practical choice.” Perhaps surprisingly, the artist hopes that her drawings eventually look less realistic. “Cartooning isn’t about realism. It’s about [feeling]. So I’m fighting that realism instinct. … That’s an impulse that I do need to fight because it’s not always the most effective way to communicate.”

Although Radtke lives in Brooklyn, she’s an honorary Las Vegan. Her role as art director and deputy publisher of The Believer magazine, which is affiliated with UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute, brings her to Nevada for stretches at a time. On July 8, she will conduct a virtual event promoting Seek You “at” the Writer’s Block via Zoom.

Portions of Seek You touch about her connection to our city. “I love Las Vegas,” Radtke says. “I was one of those people who didn’t understand how much was happening in Vegas before I went. It’s a place that really does support its artists and has great programming and great support systems for artists, which is rare in a city these days.”

As for what you should do when you feel lonely, Radtke says, “We need to listen to our loneliness. If you feel lonely, you should reach out to someone.”

BMI Presents: Kristen Radtke

Hosted by Writer’s Block Book Shop, takes place on Zoom, July 8, 5 p.m., free. Register at blackmountaininstitute.org/live-experiences.