A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY
The powerful second memoir from the twice-Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home
'Life falls apart.
We try to get a grip and hold it together.
And then we realise we don't want to hold it together . . .'
Praise for The Cost of Living:
'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. Wonderful. Not so much a memoir as an eloquent manifesto' Guardian
'Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy's every sentence is a masterpiece of clarity and poise . . . a brilliant writer' Daily Telegraph
'A graceful and lyrical rumination on the questions, "What is a woman for? What should a woman be?" ' Tatler
'I can't think of any writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about what it is to be a woman' Observer
'Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor sharp insights' Financial Times
'A heady, absorbing read' Evening Standard
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Imprint: Penguin
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Published: 05/04/2018
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ISBN: 9780241977576
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Length: 208 Pages
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RRP: £8.99
Reviews
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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
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Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor sharp insights
Financial Times
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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
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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
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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
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A heady, absorbing read
Evening Standard
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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
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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
