The Cost of Living (Living autobiography, 2) - Hardcover

Levy, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241267994 ISBN 13: 9780241267998

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, 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

Review

Deborah Levy is a most generous writer. What is wonderful about this short, sensual, embattled memoir is that it 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 the liminal, the domestic, the non-event, and what it is to be a woman... This is a little book about a big subject. It is about how to find a new way of living (Observer)

Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor sharp insights (Financial Times)

It is the story of every woman throughout history who has expended her love and labour on making a home that turns out to serve the needs of everyone except herself... A piece of work that is not so much a memoir as an eloquent manifesto for what Levy calls 'a new way of living' in the post-familial world (Guardian)

Ingenious, practical and dryly amused... This is a manifesto for a risky, radical kind of life, out of your depth but swimming all the same (New Statesman)

Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy is a brilliant writer... Each sentence is a small masterpiece of clarity and poise. That shed should be endowed with a blue plaque

(Telegraph)

A heady, absorbing read (Evening Standard)

This, from Deborah Levy, is exceptional. A memoir of life, art and separation. How to write when you're broke, have no writing space, are a parent. Also: crushed chickens, electric bikes, plumbing. Out in May and an early contender for one of the books of the year (Sinead Gleeson)

Both memoir and feminist manifesto, her writing focuses so sharply on what it means to be alive that she's given me much-needed clarity...Levy subtly informs us about what it is to be a woman.

(Vogue)

About the Author

Deborah Levy is a British playwright, novelist and poet. She is the author of seven novels: Beautiful Mutants (1986); Swallowing Geography (1993); The Unloved (1994); Billy & Girl (1996); Swimming Home (2011); Hot Milk (2016) and the forthcoming The Man Who Saw Everything (2019). Swimming Home was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012; Hot Milk was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016 and the Goldsmiths Prize 2016. Deborah is also the author of an acclaimed collection of short stories, Black Vodka (2013), and two 'living autobiographies', Things I Don't Want To Know and The Cost of Living. She has written for the Royal Shakespeare Company and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0241267994
• ISBN 13: 9780241267998
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208