deborah levy is such an artist. every book i have read of hers has so much depth and character is such a small amount of pages. i have never read such a short book that felt so layered and heart grabbing. i will read anything deborah levy ever publishes, i find myself unable to stop reading, and before i know it i’m done and i want more and more.

I absolutely loved reading this book. I was completely drawn into the topic and could not stop reading it.

A NEW DEBORAH LEVY!!!! I don't know how she does it, but AUGUST BLUE feels just as invigorating and hypnotic as any of Levy's past books. In terms of DNA, it is probably most similar to THE MAN WHO SAW EVERYTHING and HOT MILK. The story is deceptively straightforward. A world-renowned pianist sees her double (or does she?), and haphazardly pursues this other woman. At the same time, her father is ill, and she's stumbled somewhat in her career. There are no easy answers here, which I love and have grown accustomed to Levy's work. This was such a treat, and a perfect cure for my reading slump,

Thanks so much to the publisher for the e-galley.

Okay, I'm officially baffled: Acclaimed experimental author Deborah Levy serves us a blue-haired, orphaned protagonist named Elsa (birth name: Anne) who struggles to let it go - is that super funny or super stupid? I'm still not sure (brain freeze). Disney allusions aside, I was intrigued by this story about an (allegedly) 34-year-old famous pianist who, at a concert in Vienna (capital of psychoanalysis, people!), suddenly diverts from the Rachmaninoff she is supposed to play, leading to public humiliation. After the incident, she travels through Europe, giving piano lessons (fun fact: Rachmaninoff himself had a depressive episode after one of his premieres went South, in this period he made a living giving piano lessons).

We meet Elsa after the Rach debacle in Greece, her blue hair an indicator of her trying to break free from the strict rules she had been subjected to since being a child prodigy: She was given up by her mother and lived with a foster family, when Arthur, an influential piano teacher adopted her and started further training her at six years old. But there is another layer to this: she also aims to prevent any resemblance to her unknown parents ("Blue was a separation from my DNA."). In Greece, Elsa sees a doppelgaenger buying a set of mechanical horses, and becomes obsessed with the women who she sees both as herself and her mother - and she wants to take the horses from her.

So classic Levy does her enigmatic metaphor stuff once again, and I'm here for it: The sea and the extraction of spines from sea animals play an important role (cue to Hot Milk and the painting August Blue by Henry Scott Tuke) as well as the central motif of artistic control and personal artistic expression. Elsa first diverts from the Rach, then becomes enchanted by Isadora Duncan, pioneer of modern dance who broke the rules of her time in order to find artistic freedom. The students she meets, a thirteen-year-old boy and a sixteen-year-old girl, also struggle with parental expectations and their own self-expression, as well as gender roles. At some point, Elsa needs to defend herself against a man from Dresden (a city particularly beloved by Rachmaninoff) to get her phone (a means to communicate) back.

Also, family is a central theme: Is (allegedly) 80-year-old (the timeline does not match up) Arthur, the piano teacher, a type of father, or was their relationship strictly professional? What rights does Arthur's long term gay lover have? What role does Elsa's biological mother play, for whom she searches in the doppelgaenger with the horses, in the doppelgaenger's trilby she found, in piano music? She sees the doppelgaenger in Athens, in London, in Paris, and many other shadows and echoes appear in names, events, characters. Much like in The Man Who Saw Everything, readers know that this is a case of shattered identity, or rather a woman who is confronted with the disparate parts of her identity that reveal themselves as separate, but connected. The pandemic raging around her, the faces hidden behind blue surgical masks Elsa sees everywhere heighten the sense of alienation.

Another artist the text mentions early on is relevant here: Agnès Varda, a pioneering feminist French director with a love for eccentric hairstyles (let me just say: two-tone bowl cuts). She moved away from traditional forms of storytelling in order to reflect her time and add social commentary. Elsa also looks for ways to tell her story not as her life-long training prescribes it, but in a manner she feels is truthful and authentic (hello, female gender roles and what they teach us all of our lives).

It's just a joy to puzzle over Levy's texts, and this narrative riddle, rendered in captivating, lyrical prose, is no exception.

Well, it's Levy, so I am somewhat predisposed to love it. I have read virtually everything she's published (even obscure novelty items like Diary of a Steak and An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell) - except, inexplicably enough, her plays (since that's my field) - which I just find incomprehensible on any level. She's perhaps my favorite contemporary literary author; she is certainly in the top three.

So I was genuinely ecstatic for her first new novel since her 2019 Booker-nominated The Man Who Saw Everything (... still disgruntled it did not win! Especially over Atwood's retread and the dreadful Evaristo!). And Ms. Levy has not disappointed. This new novel seems a logical extension of the themes of identity, time, memory and life purpose that constituted those of the earlier book. But even though that book was a flat-out masterpiece - this might even top it.

I raced through the book in a day (it's short, and can easily be read in 3-4 hours), so will definitely go back and reread soon to pick up on what I might have missed - Levy is one author who almost demands multiple readings. And it's just so much FUN - and intellectual exercise - to 'connect the dots'.

As with all Levy, the book is enigmatic and defies categorization. Suffice it to say that this concerns a 34-year-old world famous pianist, who becomes disoriented playing a Rachmaninoff concerto in Vienna, stops performing, dyes her hair blue (one of the many allusions of the title) ... and spends the next year (in the early times of the Covid pandemic and masking) giving piano lessons in foreign lands - where she continually runs into a mysterious woman who she feels is her double. This all seems somewhat reminiscent of the Bergman film 'Persona' - but there MIGHT also be allusions to the more recent Disney classic 'Frozen' - the pianist is known as Elsa M. Anderson, but her birth name was Ann (i.e., a variation of Anna).

What does this all mean or add up to? - well, the main thing I LOVE about Levy is that she doesn't bludgeon her audience with easy answers or neat, tidy summations. Each reader will bring their own baggage and prejudices to a reading of this - and if the Booker committee doesn't see fit to at least put this on 2023's longlist, I'm leading the protest!

My profuse gratitude to FS&G and Netgalley for allowing me the privilege of reading this ARC a full 6.5 months prior to publication!

Sidenote/fun fact: I am also crazy-happy that Levy's Hot Milk is even as I speak being turned into a film starring the luminous Jessie Buckley and national treasure Fiona Shaw. Can. Not. Wait.