Author(s): Deborah Levy

Fiction | Vijeta's Book Talkers

The mesmerising new novel from the twice Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home

'If she was my double and I was hers, was it true that she was knowing, I was unknowing, she was sane, I was crazy, she was wise, I was foolish? That summer, the air was electric between us as we transmitted our feelings to each other across three countries.'

Elsa M. Anderson is a classical piano virtuoso. In a flea market in Athens, she watches an enigmatic woman buy two mechanical dancing horses. Is it possible that the woman who is so enchanted with the horses is her living double? Is she also looking for reasons to live?

Chasing their doubles across Europe, the two women grapple with their conceptions of the world and each other, culminating in a final encounter in a fateful summer rainstorm.

A vivid portrait of a long-held identity coming apart, August Blue expands our understanding of the ways in which we seek to find ourselves in others and create ourselves anew.

Praise for Deborah Levy's 'Living Autobiography':

'Her reflections on domesticity, freedom and romance are so beautiful, I found myself underlining multiple sentences a page. Wry, warm and uplifting, it's a book I'll return to again and again' Stylist

'[Levy's living autobiography series is] a glittering triple echo of books that are as much philosophical discourse as a manifesto for living and writing' - Financial Times

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: VIJETA

I finished this book and felt like I was lounging on a platinum white rock somewhere off the coast of Greece, watching the turquoise Mediterranean lap away at the sand. It almost didn’t matter that this book was shrouded in existential dread, and partially suffused with musings on the pandemic – something we’ve all come to despise, I’m sure – because Levy let it all slip by in what felt like a poetic, woolly fever dream.

We see this fever dream through the eyes of Elsa, a world-class pianist who has recently walked off stage, mid-performance. Then, at a flea market in Athens, she sees a woman, who she understands as her ‘double’. They share a bond; undefined, unrelenting, shadowy. Elsa seeks this woman out, whether through reflection or coincidence, to understand her purpose.

Ripe with intrigue and enigma, reading this book was akin to spending a day at the beach, your hair crunchy with salt and your head heavy with a weary blend of exhaustion and relief.