Anyone who has ever performed has probably had a fear of failure on stage. In Deborah Levy’s new novel, AUGUST BLUE, a professional pianist has seen her worst fears come true. While performing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 on stage in Vienna, Elsa M. Anderson --- a former child prodigy who is now in her mid-30s --- inadvertently went off script. She started to play a seemingly improvisatory composition that, as the orchestra conductor made very clear, bore little resemblance to the original.

"[E]ven if readers aren’t quite sure what the future holds for Elsa, they nevertheless get to accompany her on a strange and, at times, beautiful journey of discovery prompted by an apparent disaster."

Ever since she walked offstage in disgrace, Elsa has been adrift, spiritually and now physically as, in the wake of the initial wave of pandemic lockdowns, she travels across Europe. She has been able to live on her savings and royalties for the short term, but now she feels compelled to start teaching talented but privileged young music students. This further complicates her feelings about her longtime teacher, Arthur Goldstein, who actually became her adoptive father after recognizing her talents while Elsa (who was then named Ann) was a foster child.

Since her fall from grace, Elsa has reinvented her identity (dying her hair a brilliant shade of blue) and is trying to reevaluate her priorities. But as she browses a market stall in Athens, she spots a woman who could be her doppelgänger (she assumes; they’re both wearing masks), whose bold ease and confidence she envies. The woman purchases the two mechanical horses that Elsa covets. So Elsa retaliates by stealing the woman’s hat, which she then proceeds to wear across Europe while repeatedly glimpsing her double in numerous scenarios.

If this all sounds a bit surreal, it is. Levy has long excelled at writing opaque, mysterious situations and images into her prose. Here, these magical realist incidents, along with Elsa’s restrained responses to various romantic, interpersonal and professional circumstances, are set in counterpoint to the emotional crises and moments of reckoning that characterize the book’s final sections.

It’s perhaps a cliché that musicians like Elsa with prodigious early talents develop those gifts at the expense of emotional maturity and complexity. Here, Levy seems to both reinforce and challenge that notion as Elsa confronts the secrets of her past and tries to (in a very self-conscious way) re-envision what her future might look like. The metaphor of trying on different hats becomes a tangible symbol of reinvention. And even if readers aren’t quite sure what the future holds for Elsa, they nevertheless get to accompany her on a strange and, at times, beautiful journey of discovery prompted by an apparent disaster.