At the beginning of The Long Loneliness, Catholic social activist and journalist Dorothy Day recalls the story of her conversion to Catholicism by describing going to confession on Saturday evening. She mentions “the smell of wax and incense in the air” and the sounds from the street outside (9). She recalls the barriers between priest and confessor and the varying amounts of space that different confessionals provide. The confessional is a place to speak of one’s own “ugly, drab, monotonous sins” (10).

Day reflects on the procedure of telling the story of one’s life. Just as it is difficult to go to confession and air your sins, it is difficult to write a memoir because one is telling an audience all about their life. However, there is a universality to one’s experience that a memoir can highlight. Unlike confession, though, Day is leaving out her sins and instead discussing her memories of how she found God and what God and Christ mean to her. Day does not see how people can “feel the richness of life” without faith and means to portray that (11).

She writes that she will tell the story of her life in two parts—the first 25 years and then the time after.