Hot Milk (Levy)

Book Reviews
Deborah Levy's gorgeous new novel, Hot Milk…is a tale of how Sofia uses strength of will, rigorous self-examination and her anthropological skills to understand and begin to repair things that are holding her back.... It's a pleasure to be inside Sofia's insightful, questioning mind…. Ms. Levy has set a seemingly simple story against a backdrop thrumming with low-key menace and sly, dry humor, sometimes in the same paragraph.... As a series of images, the book exerts a seductive, arcane power, rather like a deck of tarot cards, every page seething with lavish, cryptic innuendo. Yet, as a narrative it is wanting.... The symbols here, although entrancing individually, feel at once overdetermined and underpurposed. They never fully ­cohere into a satisfying web.
Sarah Lyall - New York Times


In Hot Milk—think of mother's milk, the milk of human kindness, spoiled milk, "long-life milk" processed to last in hot climates and the breast-shaped marble dome of the Gomez Clinic—Levy has spun a web of violent beauty and poetical ennui. As a series of images, the book exerts a seductive, arcane power, rather like a deck of tarot cards, every page seething with lavish, cryptic innuendo.
Leah Hager Cohen - New York Times Book Review


Levy’s language is precise. The absurdities of her style seem scattershot at first, but yield a larger pattern: a commentary on debt and personal responsibility, family ties and independence.
Washington Post


A powerful novel of the interior life, which Levy creates with a vividness that recalls Virginia Woolf . . . Transfixing.
Erica Wagner - Guardian (UK)

Exquisite prose.... Hot Milk is perfectly crafted, a dream-narrative so mesmerising that reading it is to be under a spell. Reaching the end is like finding a piece of glass on the beach, shaped into a sphere by the sea, that can be held up and looked into like a glass-eye and kept, in secret, to be looked at again and again.
Suzanne Joinson - Independent (UK)


Among the questions posed in this heady new novel: Is Sofia's mother, Rose, sick or a hypochondriac who's feverish for attention? And more important, can the frustrated Sofia break the chains of familial devotion and live for herself?
Oprah Magazine


Highbrow/Brilliant. [An] intensely interior but highly charged new novel about family, hypochondria, Spain, Greece, and all kinds of sex.
New York Magazine


Hot Milk is a complicated, gorgeous work.
Marie Claire


A superbly crafted novel that is an inherently fascinating and consistently compelling read from beginning to end, Hot Milk clearly reveals author Deborah Levy as an exceptionally gifted storyteller
Midwest Book Review


The author of the elusive, powerful novel Swimming Home has another tale of family dysfunction. In the unforgiving heat of southern Spain, wayward anthropologist Sofia Papastergiadis delivers her mother into the hands of an eccentric doctor whom they hope can diagnose the mysterious illness that has taken over her body.
Elle.com


(Starred review.) it’s Sofia’s frantic, vulnerable voice that makes this novel a singular read. Her offbeat and constantly surprising perspective treats the reader to writing such as “we dressed as though there weren’t a dead snake in the room.”... Levy has crafted a great character in Sofia, and witnessing a pivotal point in her life is a pleasure.
Publishers Weekly


The claustrophobic, all-encompassing dysfunction of Sofia's self-involved circle of friends and family is wrapped in the oppressive heat of Spain and the narrowing possibilities that she can (or wants to) break free. [Hot Milk] draws in readers with beautiful language and unexpected moments of humor and shock.  —Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Kinship, gender, Medusas—this rich new novel from a highly regarded British writer dazzles and teases with its many connections while exposing the double-edged sword of mother-daughter love.... In her scintillating, provocative new book, Levy combines intellect and empathy to impressively modern effect.
Kirkus Reviews