My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein
Author: Deborah Levy
Published by: Hamish Hamilton
Pages: 230
Format: Hardback
My Rating: ★★★★★
Published by: Hamish Hamilton
Pages: 230
Format: Hardback
My Rating: ★★★★★
All writing is about walking ghosts.
Or perhaps the ghosts walk the writer.
Towards our parents or something like them. Towards our siblings and lovers and friends and something like them.
Towards the unknown. Towards the edge of a cliff.
Or perhaps the ghosts walk the writer.
Towards our parents or something like them. Towards our siblings and lovers and friends and something like them.
Towards the unknown. Towards the edge of a cliff.
My thoughts:
Deborah Levy’s My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein is one of those rare novels that I found myself deliberately slowing down for, reluctant to reach the final page because it was such a pleasure to absorb. It is elegant, intelligent and quietly moving, steeped in atmosphere and rich with ideas about art, identity, womanhood and creation. I absolutely loved it.
Levy arrives in Paris intending to write a biography of Gertrude Stein, tentatively titled Mama of Dada, but the project quickly unravels into something far more fluid and compelling. The novel follows a narrator who moves to Paris to write about Gertrude Stein and learn more about her life. There, she meets Eva, an artist in a long-distance marriage, and Fanny, a bold and adventurous financier. Together, they spend their days cooking, walking through the city, reading, talking, and staying up late arguing about life.
As Paris pulls her into its rhythm, the narrator reflects on everything from anxiety and uncertainty to art, language, difficult fathers, and the challenge of building a new life in another country. She also considers how these same ideas shaped Stein’s life in the early twentieth century, and what they mean for women navigating the modern world today.
Rather than producing a straightforward account of Stein’s life, the novel becomes an exploration of trying (and failing) to fully understand another person, particularly someone as formidable and elusive as Stein herself. Throughout the book, it is repeatedly suggested that Gertrude Stein does not want to be understood, yet the narrator remains captivated by her, revering her intellect and artistic legacy while attempting to draw close enough to write about her. That tension gives the novel much of its emotional and intellectual pull.
The Parisian setting is beautifully realised, and this was one of my favourite elements of the book. From the very beginning, the novel feels immersed in French culture and sensibility, beginning with the search for a missing cat eccentrically named “it,” whose disappearance sends ripples of anxiety through the lives of the characters. Levy’s attention to detail is extraordinary; every café, street, apartment and conversation feels textured and alive. Paris is not simply a backdrop here but a living, shaping force within the novel.
Levy uses Stein as an entry point into something much broader: a meditation on women writers and creators, on modernity, on war and loss, on the instability of identity itself. Stein’s thoughts and presence constantly intermingle with the narrator’s own reflections, creating a narrative that feels dreamlike at times, yet still emotional.
I also loved the trio formed between the narrator, Eva and Fanny. Their friendships overlap in fascinating ways while still allowing each woman to remain entirely distinct.
Eva, a Danish artist in a long-distance marriage, is deeply attached to “it,” and much of her emotional vulnerability surfaces through that bond. Throughout the novel, Eva is presented as enigmatic and difficult to fully know. She has this almost magnetic, composed quality, but there’s also a deep sadness and instability beneath the surface. As the narrator spends more time with her, it becomes increasingly clear that Eva’s life is not as settled as it first appears. Her long-distance marriage seems emotionally fractured, and there’s a lingering sense that she has come to Paris partly to escape herself, or at least escape the version of herself she had elsewhere.
The missing cat (originally called “It”) becomes central to the emotional atmosphere of the book. On one level, the friends genuinely search for the cat around Paris, but symbolically the cat represents disappearance, identity, freedom, loneliness, and the things people cannot quite hold onto.
Fanny, meanwhile, is another intriguing character: a French financier whose professional life exists within a resolutely capitalist world, while her personal life feels very bohemian, guided by her belief in polyamory and emotional freedom. Levy writes female friendship with such nuance and intelligence, capturing intimacy, admiration and loneliness all at once.
Something I found especially moving is that Eva herself increasingly mirrors the missing cat. She becomes emotionally elusive, difficult to “find,” even among her friends. But ultimately the narrator begins to realise that intimacy does not necessarily mean fully understanding another person. In many ways, Eva remains unknowable; just as Gertrude Stein remains unknowable to the narrator despite all her research and obsession.
The novel constantly circles around elusive things: elusive people, elusive desires, elusive meanings. The search for “it” gradually becomes symbolic of so much more: the impossibility of fully knowing another person, the instability of identity, the difficulty of artistic creation itself. Levy handles these ideas with subtlety and elegance.
The novel ends less with resolution and more with acceptance: the narrator cannot completely explain Stein, Eva, friendship, desire, or even herself. Instead, she learns to live with uncertainty and incompleteness.
This is a novel full of thought, but it never seems too heavy or inaccessible. Instead, it feels deeply moving witty, observant, melancholic and intellectually curious. I found myself underlining passages all the time and lingering over sentences or returning to certain sections just to sit with Levy’s writing a little longer.
The ending feels more reflective and quietly sad than dramatic. It left me with the feeling that people can move through each other’s lives briefly and intensely, while still remaining slightly unknowable, carrying thoughts and secrets that never fully make it into words.
A wonderful and unique novel, this is without doubt a five-star read for me.
Overall reaction:
Deborah Levy’s My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein is one of those rare novels that I found myself deliberately slowing down for, reluctant to reach the final page because it was such a pleasure to absorb. It is elegant, intelligent and quietly moving, steeped in atmosphere and rich with ideas about art, identity, womanhood and creation. I absolutely loved it.
Levy arrives in Paris intending to write a biography of Gertrude Stein, tentatively titled Mama of Dada, but the project quickly unravels into something far more fluid and compelling. The novel follows a narrator who moves to Paris to write about Gertrude Stein and learn more about her life. There, she meets Eva, an artist in a long-distance marriage, and Fanny, a bold and adventurous financier. Together, they spend their days cooking, walking through the city, reading, talking, and staying up late arguing about life.
As Paris pulls her into its rhythm, the narrator reflects on everything from anxiety and uncertainty to art, language, difficult fathers, and the challenge of building a new life in another country. She also considers how these same ideas shaped Stein’s life in the early twentieth century, and what they mean for women navigating the modern world today.
Rather than producing a straightforward account of Stein’s life, the novel becomes an exploration of trying (and failing) to fully understand another person, particularly someone as formidable and elusive as Stein herself. Throughout the book, it is repeatedly suggested that Gertrude Stein does not want to be understood, yet the narrator remains captivated by her, revering her intellect and artistic legacy while attempting to draw close enough to write about her. That tension gives the novel much of its emotional and intellectual pull.
The Parisian setting is beautifully realised, and this was one of my favourite elements of the book. From the very beginning, the novel feels immersed in French culture and sensibility, beginning with the search for a missing cat eccentrically named “it,” whose disappearance sends ripples of anxiety through the lives of the characters. Levy’s attention to detail is extraordinary; every café, street, apartment and conversation feels textured and alive. Paris is not simply a backdrop here but a living, shaping force within the novel.
Levy uses Stein as an entry point into something much broader: a meditation on women writers and creators, on modernity, on war and loss, on the instability of identity itself. Stein’s thoughts and presence constantly intermingle with the narrator’s own reflections, creating a narrative that feels dreamlike at times, yet still emotional.
I also loved the trio formed between the narrator, Eva and Fanny. Their friendships overlap in fascinating ways while still allowing each woman to remain entirely distinct.
Eva, a Danish artist in a long-distance marriage, is deeply attached to “it,” and much of her emotional vulnerability surfaces through that bond. Throughout the novel, Eva is presented as enigmatic and difficult to fully know. She has this almost magnetic, composed quality, but there’s also a deep sadness and instability beneath the surface. As the narrator spends more time with her, it becomes increasingly clear that Eva’s life is not as settled as it first appears. Her long-distance marriage seems emotionally fractured, and there’s a lingering sense that she has come to Paris partly to escape herself, or at least escape the version of herself she had elsewhere.
The missing cat (originally called “It”) becomes central to the emotional atmosphere of the book. On one level, the friends genuinely search for the cat around Paris, but symbolically the cat represents disappearance, identity, freedom, loneliness, and the things people cannot quite hold onto.
Fanny, meanwhile, is another intriguing character: a French financier whose professional life exists within a resolutely capitalist world, while her personal life feels very bohemian, guided by her belief in polyamory and emotional freedom. Levy writes female friendship with such nuance and intelligence, capturing intimacy, admiration and loneliness all at once.
Something I found especially moving is that Eva herself increasingly mirrors the missing cat. She becomes emotionally elusive, difficult to “find,” even among her friends. But ultimately the narrator begins to realise that intimacy does not necessarily mean fully understanding another person. In many ways, Eva remains unknowable; just as Gertrude Stein remains unknowable to the narrator despite all her research and obsession.
The novel constantly circles around elusive things: elusive people, elusive desires, elusive meanings. The search for “it” gradually becomes symbolic of so much more: the impossibility of fully knowing another person, the instability of identity, the difficulty of artistic creation itself. Levy handles these ideas with subtlety and elegance.
The novel ends less with resolution and more with acceptance: the narrator cannot completely explain Stein, Eva, friendship, desire, or even herself. Instead, she learns to live with uncertainty and incompleteness.
This is a novel full of thought, but it never seems too heavy or inaccessible. Instead, it feels deeply moving witty, observant, melancholic and intellectually curious. I found myself underlining passages all the time and lingering over sentences or returning to certain sections just to sit with Levy’s writing a little longer.
The ending feels more reflective and quietly sad than dramatic. It left me with the feeling that people can move through each other’s lives briefly and intensely, while still remaining slightly unknowable, carrying thoughts and secrets that never fully make it into words.
A wonderful and unique novel, this is without doubt a five-star read for me.
Overall reaction:
