Deborah Levy’s latest novel is perhaps her most compelling and fulfilling.

Elsa, an acclaimed concert pianist, is in Athens when she spies a woman who looks to be her exact double. Thus begins a journey across Europe where this doppleganger is always somewhere near, just in the fringes of her vision. As Elsa’s obsession increases against the backdrop of the COVID pandemic, the lines between fiction and reality blur with Elsa struggling to maintain her identity.

“My startling thought at that moment was that she and I were the same person. She was me and I was her. Perhaps she was a little more me than I was.”

Deborah Levy is often on the Booker and Women’s Prize shortlists, and it’s not difficult to see why. Her short, clipped prose style is alienating and abrupt – drawing out the dramatic prose in an effective manner and putting the reader in a heightened sense of awareness. Where her previous novels have sometimes seemed a little opaque, what we have in August Blue is something more rounded, and in many ways fun. Highly recommended as a gateway to readers who have yet to discover her, this is truly a novel to enjoy…whilst being a little bit freaked out.

Humourous and unnerving in equal measure, August Blue provides more questions than answers – but in an utterly satisfying fashion.

(Review by Cliff)