The High Cost of Living

“SOMETIMES I THINK WE’D ALL BE BETTER OFF WITH MORE JOGGING AND LESS SEX.” . 

For Leslie, the heroine of this searching novel, the cost of living – and loving – is getting higher and higher. First of all, she is miserable for having lost her lover, Valerie, to another woman. And she has begun to doubt just about everything about her life.

Now, she is involved in a strange erotic triangle with Honor, an adolescent virgin who has romantic ideals and Bernie, a homosexual street hustler trying to settle down. Leslie and Bernie both want Honor. They a1so want each other. But all Honor wants is a little spice in her life.

Here is a powerful, searing novel of three young dreamers caught up in a lifestyle they can neither accept nor change. 

“Piercy goes over her subjects with a fine-tooth comb and provides food for thought about some of our directions, feelings and values.”
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“…one of the more unusual love triangles that has appeared in recent fiction…It is not just that these three are believable and oddly appealing – it is also that one willingly identifies with, even admires, Leslie, however alien she may be to the reader’s own sense of identity…Piercy has written a novel as ambiguous and fascinating as life itself.”
— Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

“…as important to understanding what is of portent in our times as Hardy’s JUDE THE OBSCURE and Dreiser’s AMERICAN TRAGEDY were to theirs.”
— Tillie Olsen 

“…realism lightened and much speeded up…a human, complex and truthful work…it has formidable virtues: an intense sense of character, a direct dignity, and genuine weight. It neither snoozles up to you nor gushes nor complains, and that’s rare. By all means, buy it… It’s an impressive achievement.”
— Joanna Russ, FRONTIERS