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Blue Self-Portrait (Paperback)
$15.95
On Our Shelves Now
Staff Reviews
An amazing book, one that I loved and can’t get over. A woman on a 90 minute flight from Berlin to Paris obsesses over a maybe failed relationship with a German-American pianist and bathes in shame. In the process we get a book composed in the manner of a Schoenberg 12-tone piece, moments of absurdity, moments of soaring brilliance, and above all a fierce guiding intelligence.
— From arlo klahrApril 2018 Indie Next List
“I'm not sure I can prepare you for this book. I thought I knew what I was getting into, and a mere 140 pages later I landed on a different continent altogether. Noemi Lefebvre has produced a riveting story in Blue Self-Portrait, one that investigates the many variations of a thought, of a memory. Our narrator looks at her exchange with a pianist from every possible vantage point, arriving at both confusion and conclusion within the same second. Lefebvre is a master of the sentence, and some of these passages unfurl with all the introspection and music of Marcel Proust. Sophie Lewis' translation is a most welcome import into our canon that will be appreciated for its poetry and its audacity.”
— John Gibbs, Green Apple Books on the Park, San Francisco, CA
Description
Indie Next Selection
"A probing, wild, and fascinating novel."--Publishers Weekly
On a flight from Berlin to Paris, a woman haunted by composer Arnold Schoenberg's self-portrait reflects on her romantic encounter with a pianist. Obsessive, darkly comic, and full of angst, Blue Self-Portrait unfolds among Berlin's cultural institutions, but is located in the mid-air flux between contrary impulses, with repetitions and variations that explore the possibilities and limitations of art, history, and connection.
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