Named a Best Book of the Year by TIME , Vulture , The Guardian, BBC, The Week , and Publisher's Weekly A new novel from the Booker Prize finalist Deborah Levy, the celebrated author of The Man Who Saw Everything and The Cost of Living . At the height of her career, the piano virtuoso Elsa M. Anderson―former child prodigy, now in her thirties―walks off the stage in Vienna, midperformance. Now she is in Athens, watching an uncannily familiar woman purchase a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history. So begins her journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who seems to be her double. A dazzling portrait of melancholy and metamorphosis, Deborah Levy’s August Blue uncovers the ways in which we attempt to revise our oldest stories and make ourselves anew. "Levy crafts a surreal and moving narrative about identity and art. Don’t let the melancholy tone of the story fool you―at its core, August Blue is a revealing look at the power of self-discovery." ―Annabel Gutterman, TIME (Must-Read Books of 2023) "Levy writes in delicate, evocative strokes ― a style that complements an elegant story about the fluidity of identity and the profound aftershocks of loss . . . You may very well discover something about yourself as you journey through these evocative pages." ―Tope Folarin, Vulture (Best Books of 2023) “Levy’s novels have an undeniable―and undeniably winning―eccentricity . . . They are alive with this relentless spirit of questing . . . We should call her what she is: one of the most lively, most gratifying novelists of ideas at work today.” ―Franklin Foer, The Atlantic “Playfully picaresque . . . Levy is also masterful at the level of piquant incident, small set pieces and droll commentary.” ―Brian Dillon, 4Columns “The book offers glimpses of Levy’s talent as a stylist. She can sketch a scene with a few precise brushstrokes and conjure emotion out of white space on the page.” ―Corinna de Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times Book Review “Levy’s newest addition to her strange, enigmatic collection of fiction is a hazy mystery, interspersed with details that play with form that makes Levy one of the most exciting writers today. Elsa’s story is one of identity, past selves, alter egos and shadows that haunt us all.” ―Sam Franzini, Spectrum Culture “This meditative novel starts at a flea market in Athens, where a pianist named Elsa, who recently interrupted her career after a disastrous concert, catches sight of a woman who seems to be her double . . . As the novel quickens to a climactic encounter between Elsa and her doppelgänger, it becomes a rumination on identity, desire, and the passage from self-effacement to self-discovery.” ― The New Yorker “Levy quietly but insistently acknowledges queer possibilities ... On the surface, August Blue is in the gothic tradition . . . A short book that meanders, following itself across Europe, across memory, across a cosmopolitan landscape of identity and desire. Hate and paranoia are propulsive; acceptance and love move, in general, at a slower pace. Levy encourages you to savor the slowness.” ―Noah Berlatsky, The Observer “Her novels teem with oddness, with dreamlike, vertiginous scenes . . . August Blue , Levy’s ninth novel, is her most emphatically uncanny yet . . . This is not a long book, but Levy is such a clever writer, her plot so immaculately packed, that August Blue reads like a weighty one. Everything has a double meaning. Each object, each piece of music, adds yet another layer.” ―Lara Pawson, Times Literary Supplement “At this stage, we’re all in on anything new Deborah Levy writes. Her work encompasses surreal fiction, candid memoir, and formally inventive prose.” ― Vol. 1 Brooklyn “[ August Blue ] is another slender, elegant, sparse novel that belies depths.” ―Christopher Borrelli, The Chicago Tribune “[Levy] imparts her intimately realistic world with uncanny touches that never ring false . . . It’s a striking idea: that freedom is to be found not by pursuing the self but by shedding it. But isn’t that what we did as we shed the isolation of pandemic shutdowns and exchanged stillness for movement? There are many ways to tell that story, but Elsa’s journey is a nuanced and psychologically thrilling composition. ―Michele Filgate, Los Angeles Times “Levy’s slender, enchanted novel August Blue has all the piercing detail and bewildering movement of a midafternoon dream . . . In addition to being a novelist, Levy is also a poet. Her storytelling moves to its own music. Her sentences are sharp, sensuous, crackling with ironic humor. Her paragraphs are compact, full of tension that pulls the reader forward. The novel offers the reader a dazzling gaze at the conundrums of existence.” –Alden Mudge, BookPage (starred) “A new book from B