This book was so unique! Set in various places in Europe but the main reason I requested it is because the journey started in Greece. The chapters are short and organized in small vignettes. Even though there isn't a lot going on, I was hooked and super intrigued to see where this was going. I really liked Elsa's character and thought the writing was very well done!

Loved this. The whole book felt like I was reading Modiano. But not in a copycat way. Just a very similar style and feel. Dreamy and gauzy. I’m still finding it hard to read about Covid in fiction, and there is a lot of that here in this book.

Atmospheric and page-turning. This was my first book by Deborah Levy and it did not disappoint. I have added her other books to my TBR list. Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy.

This is the third book that i have read in a relatively short space of time that requires ones full attention, plus a great deal of thought. Those who read Deborah Levys novels will not be surprised that this is so. Her books and her writings are markedly original, often like dream sequences that I find compelling.

A woman, in her thirties, a piano prodigy, walks off the stage in the middle of a concert. Why and who she is will become part of the focus of this novel. We follow her across Europe, more so after she spots a woman buying a set of mechanical horses that she wants to but herself. That the woman looks like her, might be her doppelganger, causes her to look everywhere for this woman. She does spot her in various locations and places. Is she being followed and if so for what reason?

A novel about identity, about how important ones own self is dependent on who we are. There are clues in this novel, which is where the paying attention come in. At books end I was able to see what these very dreamlike images meant.

Once again the narrator was terrific but it might have been easier to follow in print.

I really enjoyed August Blue. The writing was effortless to read and felt poetic. I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook; the narrator was calm and had a gentle voice. I loved being transported to Sardinia, Greece, England, and Paris as a professional pianist travels after an unfortunate performance. Levy beautifully portrayed Elsa's relationship with her mentor and surrogate father, as well as the various relationships in her life. The story felt melancholy but not too dreary.

This novel is a whole mood. A book to be read slowly, savored and pondered. Elsa’s exploration of herself through her obsession about a woman she sees in a Grecian marketplace awakens a curiosity about her past/origins. Beautiful.

Published: 06/06/23

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for accepting my request to read and review August Blue.

Bottomline -- I liked this. However, I'm not certain I understood all of it. The synopsis is clear. A gifted pianist is adopted by her piano teacher. This is good storytelling as opposed to being just a book. She grows up and starts questioning in a nut shell everything. The story is like an onion, there are multiple layers and I wasn't always certain what was real and what was a representation of her feelings.

It was beautifully written and I think timeless. Of note, this is more about her finding herself, being adopted is one layer.

This is not a quick read. It's meant to savor. If I was a rereader, this would be on that short list. I could see myself with a mug of coffee, a fire and a rain or snow storm and this. The audiobook would be amazing with all the music titles and places pronounced eloquently.

Why do we read Deborah Levy books? We want that certain quality of the cerebral in the prose, of writing that will tell as much as it will show, explicate as much as it dramatizes. AUGUST BLUE is about a musician coming into confrontation with the black box of her past, who has to leave the safe shell of her art in order to confront that which could break her—or is already breaking her. Which is a great premise, but it's the way in which Levy tells the story and weaves thoughts into feelings and actions that makes the writing sing.

'Do we become someone and then set about visually making that person?'

Ann was born a musical prodigy. After she was adopted by the 'maestro', Arthur, she became Elsa a virtuoso on the piano. 'I was his child prodigy, but I was not his child'. She spends hours and years practicing and perfecting her talent. She is infamous; until one day her hands stop playing her practiced piece mid-concert. Humiliated, she flees the recital, flees the building, and flees the country. As she wanders around a market in Athens, Elsa becomes fascinated by a pair of mechanical dancing horses. With a flip of a hidden switch, they perform for the hands conducting them. It is only then she notices another woman, a veritable twin of a woman, purchasing the horses. As Elsa drifts around post Covid lockdown Europe, she keeps spotting the woman but never seems to catch her eye. She can hear the woman's voice but never has a real conversation. Just who is this doppelganger?

'August Blue' is about discovering your identity and embracing change. 'What I wanted for myself was a new composition'. Deborah Levy writes with poetic phrasing which highlights the nature of Elsa's lyrical ponderings. The tempo of the story changes with Elsa's moods and understanding. 'I was a natural blue. I am a natural blue. I was, I am.' I enjoyed reading this compact book. Its literary nature is compelling enough to draw you in further to discover who Elsa is and what she wants to be. 'I canceled everything I thought I was and let in everything else that came to me.'

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the opportunity to read and review this book.

So beautifully written, as is standard with Deborah Levy, in lyrical prose. This was a quick read but was so immersive through the prose and the development of compelling characters with unique backgrounds, exploring deeper themes through art and music.

While this writing style may not be for everyone, it's certainly worth a shot. I'm looking forward to revisiting Levy's previous works after my time with August Blue.

Delighted to include this title in the June edition of Novel Encounters, my regular column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

(3.5 Stars)

August Blue is a melancholy, reflective book about a woman experiencing self-discovery. Prior to her public error, Elsa's life had been ruled by the rigidity of practice and performance. The shame-induced break she takes allows her to gradually slow down and know herself. It all begins with seeing another woman buy two toy horses in Athens.

Overall, August Blue is a captivating meditative book that focuses on identity, parenthood, performance, and grief. If you enjoy "thinky" books with just a little plot, then August Blue is for you.

August Blue by Deborah Levy is an incisive, brief but deep exploration of self. It is my first work of fiction from Levy, a Booker Prize finalist whose three-part living memoir (Real Estate; Cost of Living; Things I Don’t Want to Know). I really enjoyed how the MC Elsa sort of dreamily rebuilds and reinvents who she is over the short course of this novel, traveling to European countrysides to tutor musical children after she, herself a musical child prodigy, has a breakdown during a global staged performance. Sometimes in a fuge state, and sometimes with extreme clarity, Elsa reenters a post-pandemic world with the same sputters and confusion we can all still relate to and is able to navigate us through to the end…or new beginning.

The audiobook narrator was strong and consistent.

Thank you @netgalley @macmillanaudio and @FSG for the ALC!

genre: general fiction
pub day: 6/6/23
rating: 5/5

August Blue is the first novel I've read by Deborah Levy, but it's easy to see why she is held in such esteem. There is a haunting, contemplative lyricism to her writing that kept me engrossed in this book, even though it's not at all a plot-driven story.

After a public fall from grace on stage in Vienna, renowned pianist Elsa M. Anderson finds herself in Greece, where she's come to teach private piano lessons. Across the public market, she watches a strangely familiar woman buying a pair of mechanical horses. As she travels across Europe, the woman seems to shadow her as she spirals into fraught memories and tries to come to terms with her past in order to move forward with her life.

August Blue is a cerebral, character-driven story, beautifully written and metaphorical. In many ways it's a simple story about a woman rediscovering herself, but at the same time it's a complex examination of womanhood, childhood trauma, artistic expression, the constraints of talent, and the manifestations of grief. It left me with lots of questions, but I was mesmerized and entranced by the journey Levy took me on and I was content with not knowing all the answers. Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the advance reading opportunity.

I've never read a Levy book before, but did know going in that they're usually dense with surrealism. In this intriguing novel, Elsa is a piano prodigy who abruptly stops playing in the midst of a big performance. She takes off and roams through Greece, where she sees her "double," a woman in a green raincoat who looks almost like her. Elsa's journey of self-discovery was unique, but a bit too surreal for me. At times I wished for a more clear-cut narrative, so that I could truly connect with the character. I listened to this one as well, and Alix Dunmore does a lovely job narrating this story. If you're a Levy fan, you'll most likely enjoy this one. Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me.

There’s a touch of madness to Levy’s latest. In the opening pages, we meet a disgraced former child prodigy, a pianist, wandering the streets of Athens. We follow her in pursuit of a doppelgänger, hopping around Europe and perhaps reality itself. We have hints that not all is right in the world, with unstable markers of identity, a questionable COVID-era sequence of events, and a mysterious mentor / surrogate-father who is preternaturally aging away in Sardinia. The prose is sly, the star of the show, as the book really shines on the sentence level. We get a bevy of allusions, from 19th and 20th century composers to choreographer Isadora Duncan to auteur Agnès Varda to the multifaceted Josephine Baker and others. An engagement with the artists referenced, from Rachmaninov and Mozart on down the line, adds a further layer of interest. I can understand reviews that highlight the ways this doesn’t quite cohere. That’s a fair take, but I don’t think the pieces are meant to fit. Living in a world awash with overwritten prose, it’s refreshing to see a book where loose ends are unafraid to remain loose ends. Many thanks to the US publisher, FSG, for approving a digital ARC via Netgalley.

A dreamy meditation on art and family relationships. The protagonist was interesting but very frustrating at times. I didn’t always understand the point of this book, besides being a character study. I liked it but not a standout.

August Blue is likely to be one of my favorite books of the year. It skirts the surreal on its slow and inevitable way to the wondrous. Every sentence went somewhere that felt both completely unexpected, and yet, absolutely inevitable. If you’ve read it, then you know what I’m talking about.

This is the first book by Deborah Levy that I’ve read and I’m sure is not going to be the last one. I fell in love with the story from the first page and couldn’t put it down. It is the story of a young talented woman in search of her own identity. She was considered a piano prodigy and that was enough for her to be able to build her self. But when she fails to deliver her best to the audience in a concert, her structure collapses and she has to rebuild her identity from scratch. Her teacher, mentor and adoptive father is the only one who knows her real origin but she never wanted to talk about it, until now.
Her new job as a teacher takes her to different Europeans city in a post pandemic world that is slowly returning to normalcy, so her inner exploration is also a pilgrimage.
The writing and the story are so polished that make this book a wonderfully absorbing reading.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is a slowly-paced, introspective novel following a famed violinist as she interrogates her relationships and upbringing following a career shifting performance.

With emotionally evocative prose, Levy paints a portrait of a young woman holding a mirror to herself as she traverses from job to job, country to country, minding that her "double" is always near.

This is a well written character study and would be of particular interest to readers familiar with classical music. I'm unfamiliar with the history and technicalities of piano, so many of the references went over my head. However, this did not deter me from following along with the story.

August Blue is for readers who prefer character driven narratives over fast-paced, plot heavy works. Despite the tedium at certain points in the narrative, I still liked this book.