Real Estate by Deborah Levy

In the third volume of her living memoirs, Deborah Levy muses on home and identity in the wake of irreversible change.

London, Paris, New York, Mumbai. Home to millions. But how about a home for one? Where might it be? What might it look like?

Now 59 years old, divourced author Deborah Levy constructs fabulous homes in her imagination, decorating them this way and that. A well. A stream. A pomegranate tree. Redecorating an imaginary home is the work of an instant.

But what about recreating the self? That takes more than a new pair of sage green shoes.

Levy’s prose is elegant and playful. It loops back to earlier references to riff off images and expand ideas. A line about a tiger in one chapter becomes a joke about tigers in the next. It’s very pleasing: the reader is drawn into a series of in-jokes. Real Estate feels like something between a diary and a friendly chat over wine and olives.

In Chapter 4, Levy wonders why the roles of mothers, grandmothers, great-aunts, and spinsters are always seen as demotions in film scripts. Their roles are either to comfort or police the more exciting characters, or to dole out wisdom. What would a middle-aged female heroine be like? Or an old-aged female heroine? A female rogue, lusty and alluring, travelling the world with barely a thought for her children, while having incredible adventures and living by the skin of her wits. Why will no one buy this script? Can you make this script for yourself?

As with the previous volume, it was a pleasure to be in Levy’s frank and philosophical company. I love the idea of her literary real estate being the ground that matters.

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