Cost of Living: Essays

"Astute, compassionate and lethally funny. Maloney is an exceptionally alert writer on whom nothing is lost, who sees everything with excruciating clarity." --Sarah Manguso, The New York Times

The searing intimacy of Girl, Interrupted combines with the uncomfortable truths of The Empathy Exams in a collection of essays chronicling one woman's experiences as both patient and caregiver, giving a unique perspective from both sides of the hospital bed.

What does it cost to live?

When we fall ill, our lives are itemized on a spreadsheet. A thousand dollars for a broken leg, a few hundred for a nasty cut while cooking dinner. Then there are the greater costs for even greater misfortunes. The car accidents, breast cancers, blood diseases, and dark depressions.

When Emily Maloney was nineteen she tried to kill herself. An act that would not only cost a great deal personally, but also financially, sending her down a dark spiral of misdiagnoses, years spent in and out of hospitals and doctor's offices, and tens of thousands owed in medical debt. To work to pay off this crippling burden, Emily becomes an emergency room technician. Doing the grunt work in a hospital, and taking care of patients at their most vulnerable moments, chronicling these interactions in searingly beautiful, surprising ways.

Shocking and often slyly humorous, Cost of Living is a brilliant examination of just what exactly our troubled healthcare system asks us to pay, as well as a look at what goes on behind the scenes at our hospitals and in the minds of caregivers.

Author: Emily Maloney
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Published: 02/08/2022
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.30w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781250213297

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 11/22/2021
Kirkus Reviews 12/01/2021
Library Journal 01/07/2022 pg. 1
Shelf Awareness 02/08/2022

About the Author
Emily Maloney's work has also appeared in Glamour, Virginia Quarterly Review, the North American Review, and the American Journal of Nursing, among others. She has worked as a dog groomer, pastry chef, general contractor, tile setter, catalog model, and has sold her ceramics at art fairs. Emily has twice been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship. She lives in Evanston, Illinois.