Real estate A living autobiography

Levy (The Cost of Living) brings her trilogy of autobiographies home in this incandescent meditation on writing, womanhood, and the places that nurture both. From her shabby flat in North London, she imagines a dream property: "a grand old house with the pomegranate tree in the garden," and returns to this refrain throughout her delightful memoir-in-vignettes. Levy is 59 and single, and, with her youngest daughter off to university, takes a fellowship in Paris and contemplates the nature of middle-aged female freedom that includes, for her, a deep longing for an expansive kind of rootedness. "Domestic space," she observes, "if it is not an affliction bestowed on us by patriarchy, can be a powerful space. To make it work for women and children is the challenge." She accumulates treasures for the "unreal estate" of her dreams, contemplates a friend's extramarital affair, rents a crumbling old home in Greece, and encounters sexist male writers. Despite what physically occurs, this is a cerebral affair--Levy's mind is both troubled and titillated by the slipperiness of time and place--and her wry wit and descriptive powers are more pleasurable than any plot. Eloquent and unapologetically frank, Levy's astute narrative is a place worth lingering in. Agent: The Wylie Agency. (Aug.)

In this third installment of her Living Autobiography trilogy, Levy explores real estate with a particular focus on her dream of homeownership. The author begins with the purchase of a banana tree for her new writing shed in London. Throughout the remainder of the book, she chronicles a growing list of possessions both real and imagined, including a pomegranate tree in the garden, horses, a small rowing boat, e-bikes, and a fireplace shaped like an ostrich egg. Having recently left her husband of more than 20 years, the author also investigates the idea of women being treated as real estate. "Never again did I want to sit at a table with heterosexual couples and feel that women were borrowing the space," she writes. Levy's story initially begins as a stream of consciousness but soon evolves into a beautifully written interconnected piece featuring eloquent descriptions of her surroundings and quotes from writers that infiltrate her thoughts: James Baldwin, Gabriel García Márquez, Simone de Beauvoir, Katherine Mansfield, Louisa May Alcott, and W.E.B. DuBois. Levy takes readers along on her travels to a literary festival in Mumbai, her deceased stepmother's apartment in Manhattan, a writing fellowship in Paris, a friend's birthday in Berlin, her childhood house in Johannesburg, and a summer rental home in Greece. Each destination offers a different concept of home. With her youngest daughter leaving for college and her 60th birthday rapidly approaching, Levy also contemplates her feelings of loneliness and solitude, aging, and notions of patriarchy as she comes to terms with her new identity. "In every phase of living we do not have to conform to the way our life has been written for us," she writes. In closing, as Levy inventories her possessions, she is able to find fresh meaning among her belongings. A captivating journey to find a sense of place. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.