Short and smart and surprisingly appealing.
Is this meta fiction? Is the narrator Levy or a character in a novel? Whatever, the book brings Gertrude Stein to life in the city where she found herself and her fame, alongside some modern going’s on between various female characters to whom not much happens other than the disappearance of a cat. Stein’s presence dominates, a big woman with astonishing ideas and whose writing defies easy comprehension. She was surrounded by the great and the good - artists, writers. Hemingway admired her although she was not heterosexual. Altogether rather fascinating. Levy is brilliant.

This was the most Deborah Levy book Deborah Levy could write. If you’re a fan this will make sense.

Look this is very niche, fans of aforementioned author or fans of Gertrude Stein will eat up this little romp of a story that alternates between the life of Stein and essentially the life of our author. It’s playful in the sense it plays with words and structure and the meaning of words and what writing can be, it’s philosophical but approachable.

Thoroughly enjoyed.

Deborah Levy entrances you into a world of a narrator and writer wandering around Paris amid social unrest while becoming infatuated with Gertrude Stein, an American novelist and poet whose non-linear writing style inspired so many women writers after her. A creative way to not only give biographical moments of a beloved author via her own thoughts and poetry, but also give a fictional account searching for meaning in this terrifying world we live in every day.

The narrator knows so much, yet seemingly nothing at all about Gertrude Stein and the life she pioneered others to follow. While looking for her friend’s missing cat and living vicariously through their mutual friend’s love life, she is trying to piece together the beauty of the mundane and being modern in a constrictive society. Levy has you and these characters searching for purpose. What are we looking for in life? What is the quintessential epiphany moment every human should strive for?

If you tick three of the following:
(1) intrigued by everything Deborah Levy writes
(2) love books set in Paris
(3) fascinated by Gertrude Stein
(4) love meta-fiction, auto-fiction or I-fiction
(5) enjoy reading books about other books (and authors)

...then this book is definitely for you!
This is Deborah Levy doing what she does so very, very well.
I loved every minute, every word and wanted to start reading it all over again as soon as I finished.
I'm sure I missed some stuff because I raced through it so quickly the first time.
Could easily be my best read of 2026.

Absolutely loved this; fascinating fusion of theory, literary history, essay, and fiction. A total pleasure, like all of Levy's work, while also being attentive to current historical injustices in a way that felt natural and sincere.