The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography

the first sections of this book captured me. i love essays/memoirs written in this style. but that said....maybe what went wrong with the rest of the book is that i wanted it expand, i wanted it to elaborate on this dynamic of men so often informing a woman that she "talks too much". as the book progressed, i felt it lightly touched down on a variety of good topics but nothing was explored. a five star book is one that i keep. a four star book is possibly keep-able but for sure one that i will lend to my sister to read (as i do with five star books). a three star book is not likely to get passed to my sister but rather donated to the public library. it's likely the fault of this reader that a more solid engagement failed between writer and reader. perhaps i'll try another of her books in time, but for now, i am moving on. my favorite writer in this style: patti smith. i've kept all her books.

I agree with other reviewers that this is a series of introspective essays. She tells us that in the subtitle "A Working Autobiography". That was what I needed. I wanted to hear another person's journey at reinventing herself outside of society's expectations. I found her discussions of femininity great - not anything I had read before. Her discussions of being a writer helpful to me as an artist. I couldn't relate to everything as they are different experiences than mine but it gave me some insight into my mom. And her writing is smooth, satisfying. It has a beautiful texture. This was my first Levy book; it will not be my last.

Powerful little book, sort of about getting over the collapse of a twenty year marriage and the death of a mother in the same year, and getting on with life. An interesting mix of memories and complicated, sharply observed present day encounters.

This book is so fabulous, I bought it twice because I wanted to share it with a friend but also wanted to keep my own copy. Everyone needs to read this book, but especially women who are writers. Thank you Deborah Levy for speaking for us!

She reveals with utter honesty the experiences of starting over emotionally and physically after the disintegration of marriage and loss of a mother. With humor and vulnerability she shares what kept her going to create a new life for her children, her creativity, and her soul. Intelligent. Wonderful.

The writing style is lovely. The content is unfinished. Rather, the memoir is written in cipher and the reader lacks the key.The author’s charge to protect privacy and the power of metaphor in no way justify nor compensate for the dearth of details. Rather, Levy’s exorbitant withholding ultimately makes for an unsatisfying read and a frustrated reader.(3 stars rounded up from the deserved 2.5)

A raw and real beautifully written report of a woman's journey through life's loves and losses. A book filled with life wisdom. I am very much looking forward to reading more of Levy's works.

This set of essays is utterly brilliant! I was stunned by both Levy's observations and prose, which is lyrical and compelling. Our book group read it and every one of us loved every minute of it, which does not often happen. Superb!

Once I started to read it, I couldn't put this book down. It speaks to (and validates) so many of my experiences.

The Cost of Living is a generous memoir about not very much at all. It’s not that the events Deborah Levy chronicles – the end of a marriage, the death of her mother - are not significant, it’s that she writes about the small moments in between with as much care and precision.Levy’s marriage has dissolved, along with a particular life she has spent years creating. Quietly, a role she no longer needs to play evaporates into the North London air. Her career is thriving – she’s been nominated for the Booker prize – but she has nowhere to write. When writes at length about the shed she’s borrowed to use as a study, an ordinary space in which to ply her trade, she’s really writing a new way of being, on her own terms, one desk, house plant or bag of groceries at a time.Those liminal moments are not epiphanies. Women already know the value of a room of one’s own. They are merely expressions of the many inconspicuous ways in which events – and how we react to them – shape a life. Rather than re-invent or claim what feminists have stated before her, Levy adds a thin but specific layer of meaning and experience – her own. It only needs a light touch because it acknowledges what came before.Letting out anger like a sigh, the writing is honest, unadorned, thought provoking. Without seeming to write about anything at all, she explores the challenges women face in claiming their desires and freeing themselves from the roles imagined for them by men.Particularly interesting to me was the insight into the interplay between grief and creativity, but there’s a lot there for anyone who cares to assign meaning to descriptions of the mundane. Levy’s memoir is generous because life has a cost – living it, unliving it, writing it – and the reader gets to learn from the writer without paying a thing (except close attention).

Wonderful book

Very pleased with the quick delivery of this very original book.

I was unfamiliar with Levy and this is the only book I have read by her, based on a brief review in the London Review of Books, so I had little clue as to what to expect. I found a beautifully written, very personal kind of memoir which lets us into her life, at a stage where she has recently separated from her husband of many years and is in full rebuilding phase, aged circa 50.This feels like a very personal book so it is understandable that some people would read it and feel a great affinity with it, and with the author, whilst others may not. I am in the latter category, having found much of the book rather grating. At the risk of seeming a bit nasty, I thought she sounded like she had a bone to pick with the world at times - and the men in it in particular - and comes across as a bit self-pitying and self-absorbed. The book is of course very much centered on herself and her needs. What do I expect to read in a highly personal memoir you may ask. Fair point, and I am sure that many other readers, perhaps who have been through a similar experience, may read this account through different eyes, closer to the authors', and get a lot from it. However, read through my eyes I didn't much enjoy this memoir, and despite some good passages, didn't get very much out of it.