Deborah Levy, FRSL, writes fiction, plays, and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, widely broadcast on the BBC, and translated into fourteen languages. The author of highly praised novels, including Hot Milk and Swimming Home (both Man Booker Prize finalists), The Unloved, and Billy and Girl, the story collection Black Vodka, and the essay Things I Don't Want to Know, she lives in Londo
"[Levy] is an indelible writer . . . [an] elliptical genius . . .
The Cost of Living . . . is always a pleasure to consume." - Dwight
Garner, The New York Times "An astute observer of both the mundane
and the inexplicable, Levy sketches memorable details in just a few
strokes . . . What makes the book stand out . . . is that Levy
doesn't allow herself to linger over these details . . . She's like
an expert rafter, and the river she travels is full of encounters
and emotions. While another writer might give us a lengthy tour of
this turbulent water, Levy doesn't slow down. There's joy in her
maneuvering through the rapids, difficult though they may be. And
there's joy for us in watching her." - Yiyun Lee, The New York
Times Book Review "Levy's style is fragmented, each anecdote as
luminous, self-contained and hard as the pearls in the necklace she
habitually wears around her throat. There's humor here and
vulnerability . . . The Cost of Living is a smart, slim meditation
on womanhood informed by Levy's wide reading." - Maureen Corrigan,
NPR's "Fresh Air" "The Cost of Living is unclassifiable, original,
full of unexpected pleasures at every turn. Though it can be read
in a flash, I suspect readers will want to savor this book slowly,
for its many moments of insight, humor, wisdom, and surprise.
Delivered in gorgeous, disciplined prose, Deborah Levy has crafted
a bracing, searing inquiry into one woman's life that manages to
tell the truth of all women's lives. I loved it." - Dani Shapiro
"Levy would never tell another woman to live the way she does, or
to live any one way at all. She's too sophisticated a feminist for
that. Still, she wants us . . . to know that she's happy, that
she's thriving in this new, uncharted life. Her work is, too. The
last sentence of the book starts, 'The writing you are reading now
is made from the cost of living.' For writing this good, the cost
of living is plainly the right price to pay." - NPR.org "An
eloquent manifesto for what Levy calls 'a new way of living' in the
post-familial world." - The Guardian "This is a writer who has
found her voice and her subject, and both speak directly to our
times . . . Levy captivates us from her wonderful first sentence .
. . If you want evidence that Levy's struggles to find a life that
makes sense for her have paid off, this book is Exhibit A." - The
Los Angeles Times "Extraordinary and beautiful. Ranging widely and
deeply over marriage, motherhood, love, death and friendship, it is
a work suffused with fierce intelligence, generous humanity and
razor-sharp insights." - The Financial Times "Powerful." - O, the
Oprah Magazine "Not only a personal reflection but a meditation on
what is demanded of women." - Electric Literature, "The 15 Best
Non-Fiction Books of 2018"
"Spare, lucid, profound, Levy's book is an evaluation of the work
of a writer and the work of being a woman in the world." - San
Francisco Chronicle She's the most delicious narrator . . . What
makes Levy remarkable, beyond the endless pleasures of her
sentences, is her resourcefulness and wit. "She's ingenious,
practical and dryly amused, somehow outside herself enough to find
the grim, telling humor in almost any situation. Her experience is
interesting to her largely for what it reveals about society,
rather than the other way round . . . This is a manifesto for a
risky, radical kind of life, out of your depth but swimming all the
same." - The New Statesman "Keen and moving . . . This timely look
at how women are viewed (and often dismissed) by society will
resonate with many readers, but particularly with those who have
felt marginalized or undervalued." - Starred review, Publishers
Weekly "An elegant, candid meditation on the fraught journey to
self-knowledge." - Kirkus Reviews "A robust piece of writing about
what gives humans purpose . . . It is a heady, absorbing read." -
The Evening Standard "Levy, nearing the end of her fifties, is
writing her life not for her peers but for a new generation. Since
we tend to speak of feminism as coming in waves, separated by
generation gaps (most recently the supposed rift between
millennials and baby boomers), we often focus on what divides
women. What if instead we saw all women as trying to understand
themselves as major characters in a society that will grant them
only the status of minor ones?" - Harper's Magazine "[A] beautiful
yet damning indictment of how our culture effaces women's creative
voices, both directly and insidiously." - Library Journal "A
tender, vulnerable book with a fierce strength and intelligence at
its core. We sense the courage and honesty Levy required to
submerge herself, breath held, fully in the past in order to find
her way into a new, altered present." - Nadja Spiegelman "Searching
for something to read after devouring Women and Power? Known for
her piquant novels, Deborah Levy now takes to non-fiction, with a
'working autobiography' that comprises thoughtful dissections of
life as a woman." - Elle Magazine, "Here Are the 21 Books We're
Most Excited to Read in 2018" "In this evocative and insightful
memoir, Levy describes her new freedom, in all its complexity and
drudgery, and examines how society's expectations can define and
confine women . . . Levy deftly relates the circumstances of her
new life with a bewitching combination of wit and pathos." -
Booklist "How thrilling to read this vivid account by a brilliant
woman leaving the marital and maternal we for scary freedom in the
land of I. I loved this book!" - Honor Moore "Beautiful, elegiac .
. . The power of words to bestow life after death, and the
importance of choosing what is living over what is dead, are at the
heart of Levy's exquisite prose." - The Spectator "An inherently
fascinating, thoughtful and thought-provoking read from beginning
to end, The Cost of Living is a compelling compilation of intensely
personal stories so relevant to our turbulent times." - Midwest
Book Review "The Cost of Living refers to the price a woman has to
pay for unmaking the home she no longer feels at home in. In Levy's
case, this radical act of erasure inaugurates a quest for a new
life that is inseparable from the writing of a new narrative." -
The Irish Times "[Levy] packs astounding insight and clarity into
every passage . . . If I could, I would buy these books for every
woman I know." - The Globe and Mail "A memoir of a woman creating a
new life after divorce and a collection of insightful musings on
femininity, motherhood, and the craft and discipline of writing." -
Lilith Magazine "A candid and raw offering from an author whose
pain is matched by her exceptional talents as a writer." - The Free
Lance-Star "Highly evocative and allusive." - Vulture "The Cost of
Living is a sleight-of-hand masterpiece, a text full of
unfathomable juxtapositions and curious segues . . . A prodigious
effort containing lifetimes and generations, folded together in an
intricate, impossible origami." - Women's Review of Books
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