"A novel by the author of The Man Who Saw Everything about wayward selves, femininities, sexualities, avatars, alter egos, and the twin poles of compassion and cruelty that exist within all of us"--
After glimpsing her identical double shopping in Athens, Elsa spends a month pursuing her doppelganger, resulting in an uncanny, erotic encounter in the summer rain, in the new novel by the highly-praised author of The Man Who Saw Everything.
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.