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Cost of Living: Essays
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Volume
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About This Book
The searing intimacy of Girl, Interrupted combined 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.
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Reviews
"She's worked as an emergency room technician, but also has extensive experience as a patient ..."
"These qualities combine to elevate this collection far above the usual first-person essayistic fare."
"Maloney's book isn't a history so much as an inside view of the medical-financial complex ..."
"Cost of Living is an early entry on my list of most memorable reads in 2022, and it's sure to be a collection readers will want to hold onto, return to, and dwell on for years to come."
"With subtle wit and moving vulnerability, she explores how survival is dependent on capital, offering a unique perspective on the American health-care system ..."
"She narrates her personal experiences as a patient in the U.S."
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