The Cost of Living - Hardcover

Levy, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241267994 ISBN 13: 9780241267998

Publisher: Penguin, 2018

Synopsis

The audacious and elegiac second installment in her 'living autobiography' on writing and womanhood, from the twice-Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home 'Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor sharp insights' Financial Times Following the acclaimed Things I Don't Want to Know, Deborah Levy returns to the subject of her life in letters. The Cost of Living reveals a writer in radical flux, considering what it means to live with value and meaning and pleasure. This perfectly crafted snapshot of a woman in the process of transformation is as distinctive, wide-ranging and original as Levy's acclaimed novels, an essential read for every Deborah Levy fan. 'Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy is a brilliant writer . . . Each sentence is a small masterpiece of clarity and poise' Telegraph 'This short, sensual, embattled memoir is not only about the painful landmarks in her life - the end of a marriage, the death of a mother - it is about what it is to be alive. I can't think of any other writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about what it is to be a woman' Observer

About this title

About the Author

Deborah Levy is a British playwright, novelist and poet. She is the author of six novels: Beautiful Mutants (1986); Swallowing Geography (1993); The Unloved (1994); Billy & Girl (1996); Swimming Home (2011); and Hot Milk (2016). Swimming Home was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 as well as the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize, and Hot Milk was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016 and the Goldsmiths Prize 2016. Deborah is also the author of a collection of short stories, Black Vodka (2013), which was shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. She has written for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the BBC.

Review

“I read this book with indecent speed and greed, but it deserves to be read at a pace closer to lived time...Levy knows how to share her story.”—The Guardian
 
“The book’s fragmentary form suits its subject. [Levy] is documenting the impact of dismantling a home, packing up a life, and this has the effect of flipping time into a ‘weird shape’...Funny and wise, Levy is the perfect guide through the complexities and contradictions of her new reality.”—Independent
 
“Deborah Levy describes women’s often thankless homemaking enterprise as ‘an act of immense generosity’. It is also a perfect description of this truly joyous book.”—Irish Times
 
“Serious, playful, considered and provocative, The Cost of Living is a glorious successor to Things I Don’t Want to Know, an affirmation of the art of living as much as an exploration of its costs.”—Financial Times
 
“‘Being alone doesn’t suit you nearly as much as you think it does,’ a male friend tells Deborah Levy rather patronizingly...But he is wrong. Being alone, and what [she goes] through to get there, suits [her, and she is] fascinating in the telling.”—Image Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0241267994
• ISBN 13: 9780241267998
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 187