The Cost of Living - Deborah Levy

                                                  What it's about...

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. 

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.

What we thought...

A lot of the episodes in The Cost of Living seem quite mundane at first glance (or if repeated in a review) but it is in mundanity that Levy's skill really lies. It gives an honest portrayal of a life experiencing ups and downs, sometimes extreme in the end of her marriage and the death of her mother, but sometimes minor, such as a dispute over the parked location of her electronic bicycle. The bike itself is a recurring character that one comes to love almost as much as Levy herself.

There's also a lot of joy to be found, not least in the descriptions of food. I love descriptions of what people are eating and rarely find enough of it in books, but here food is handled as a central thread to life, whether it's a hilariously flattened chicken that's somehow salvaged for dinner, or fruit made glamorous when eaten with her daughters and their friends, or bubblegum flavoured ice lollies that manage to be heartbreaking. 

Perhaps foolishly I dipped into this before reading it's predecessor Things I Don't Want to Know, but honestly this just makes me thrilled that there is still more Levy for me to seek out and read. 

Robyn