12 Comments

This was a great read. It is so good to see smaller publishers take a risk on someone and that really paid off. Great piece.

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Thanks! 😀

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Thank you for this insightful post. Even when I don’t love Levy (loved Hot Milk and Swimming Home; The Man Who Saw Everything less) there is always something to be gleaned. The Cost of Living has a permanent spot on my desk with the other books I turn to when I’m feeling stuck or frustrated.

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Exactly! I'm a firm believer that you can take what you resonate with from a writer and leave the rest! I couldn't get into The Man Who Saw Everything, either.

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I love Levy. I read Hot Milk first and then Swimming home, but the Living autobiography was what sealed it for me. Lovely post.

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Thanks Liza! I think the two novels you mention are my favourites of her work, but I know many people who go back to her living autobiography again and again for inspiration.

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Yes, I loved both of the two novels (less the more recent August Blue) but the living autobiography makes me want to carry her grocery bags up the hill and have her over to my place and serve her endless supplies of Turkish delight.

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I am just reading August Blue!! And to be truthful…struggling a bit with it, so I get you. And yes: carrying those bags up the hill seems to have touched a nerve with so many women readers…

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Nov 5Edited

Really enjoyed this post Kate! As I mentioned previously, 'Swimming Home' knocked my socks off. Levy is queen of symbols! (Spoilers ahead...) There is Kitty Finch whose name is this unholy marriage between cat and bird. It captured, for me, her occupying a borderline between predator and prey. At times she is the bird. She wears the feathered cape when she goes out with Joe. She is perhaps prey in that scenario - the vulnerable bird - but then later buys the blue sugar mouse. It seems to mark the changeover to cat. The dynamic between her and Joe shifts in the car home. She is knowing and in control. At other times, in cat mode, she arranges the rabbit tails in a vase and puts Nina's toy rabbit in Mitchell's rat trap. She has an animal quality in her predisposition towards nudity. Is Kitty some sort of personification of depression? Bird and Cat. Both vulnerable and vicious.

Sorry for this long comment Kate. I am very boring and longwinded. And clogging up the comments section! But I did love this book. I'll get to Hot Milk next.

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Thanks, Tash! Yes, Kitty Finch is an interesting and complex character. Levy's work is full of them. Hot Milk is also littered with symbolic imagery. I think you'll enjoy!

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Thanks Kate. I don’t think I’ve read her work but I saw yesterday that she has a collection of essays out.

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Ooh, good time to check her out then!

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