"First published in 2018 in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton"--Title page verso

The big silvers -- The tempest -- Nets -- Living in yellow -- Gravity -- The body electric -- The black and bluish darkness -- The republic -- Night wandering -- X is where I am -- Footsteps in the house -- The beginning of everything -- The Milky Way -- Good tidings

"What does it cost a woman to unsettle old boundaries and collapse social hierarchies that make her a minor character in a world not arranged to her advantage? This vibrant memoir, a portrait of contemporary womanhood in flux, is an urgent quest to find an unwritten major female character who can exist more easily in the world. Levy considers what it means to live with meaning, value, and pleasure, to seize the ultimate freedom of writing our own lives, and reflects on the work of such artists and thinkers as Simone de Beauvoir, James Baldwin, Elena Ferrante, Marguerite Duras, David Lynch, and Emily Dickinson. The Cost of Living is crucial testimony, as distinctive, witty, complex, and original as Levy's acclaimed novels"--Dust jacket