Author(s): Deborah Levy

Fiction | Staff Picks

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

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Reviewed by Fantine:

Elsa, a world-renowned former child prodigy concert pianist has walked off stage mid-show in Vienna. To the confusion of her adoptive maestro father, eccentric friends, and the general public. She is travelling Europe tutoring gifted, emotionally neglected children. But wherever she goes she is followed, shadowed by a woman. And why can’t she shake questions surrounding her adoption and the mother she never knew. Blending surreal fragments and matter-of-fact prose elements come together long after the final page. Levy's writing is unshakable, the kind of story that only gets better with time and thought.