by JULIET WATERS

When a child is abducted, a school cafeteria shot up, or a building flown into by anyone who isn’t a terrorist, there’s a fairly predictable news cycle. The first label applied to the criminal will be "loner." The next label applied, usually a day or so later, will be "not a loner." Conflicting reports as to whether or not the criminal is a loner will soon fade into the background to be investigated in more depth in a future documentary on A&E.

There is no shortage of heinous criminals with tons of friends: Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy. Still when a "not a loner" kills, rapes or attacks, it’s always considered unusual news. Where would Law & Order be if we couldn’t immediately and wrongly suspect a loner? As Anneli Rufus acidly points out in Party of One: The Loner’s Manifesto, imagine the outrage if we were to replace the label "loner" with another label, like "Canadian."

Fighting discrimination is hard for loners. There will never be a Loner Pride parade, and probably not even a loner support group. Rufus defines loner as anyone who likes being alone and lacks a strong sense of community. Loners are not to be confused with outcasts, the mentally ill, or the rejected. Loners often have lovers and partners, they usually just have a harder time meeting them (or they did until the invention of the Internet). They are more likely to be creative, hard working and productive than they are to be criminal. Rufus’s chapter on significant loners includes everyone from Picasso to Paul Westerberg. Loners may be shy, but they are often simply uninterested in the average rituals, chit-chat and problems of society. "After what others would call a fun day out together, we feel as if we have been at the Red Cross, donating blood."

Despite claims that loners aren’t misanthropes, Rufus certainly has flashes of contempt for The Mob. For the most part, however, this is an intelligent, witty polemic against a society that regards loners with fear, repugnance and contempt. It is especially harsh on those with a mission to rehabilitate loners.

Party of One is also an interesting portrait of a civilization evolving in such a way that loners can be increasingly free to be loners without threatening group survival. There are primitive fears of loners that can be traced back to the days when everyone’s energy and participation in rituals was necessary for the survival of a tribe. And there are more current fears of loners who have a tendency not to care about the latest breakthrough in deodorant, or to give a fuck about what anyone thinks of their car. The increasing number of content loners are a threat to consumer capitalism. They are most deeply a threat, however, to those psychologists, educators and neighbours who have an unquestioned belief that non-social tendencies are necessarily symptoms of a dysfunction.

Rufus is thorough in exploring the differences between natural-born loners and pseudo-loners. A typical pseudo-loner is Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who spent the early part of his years seeking attention from peers but was rejected for being obnoxious. Rufus argues that Kaczynski assumed the role of loner. But unlike a loner who would thrive in isolation, he went mad. Another example would be Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon to gain attention, not to avoid it.

This is a fun book for loners and a great antidote to the masses of literature that exists to help them with their self-esteem. It’s also an instructive book for non-loners, though it’s unlikely that those who are invested in the salvation of loners will read it. Surprisingly, Rufus never quotes the credo from the film Barfly: "It’s not that I don’t like people, I just seem to feel better when they’re not around." Fortunately for loners, they now have a great book to go with that line.

Party of One: The Loner’s Manifesto by Anneli Rufus, Marlowe & Company, pb, 286pp, $24.95