Deborah Levy’s latest novel, *My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein*, follows a first-person narrator who travels to Paris to research the American writer and collector Gertrude Stein. The narrative slips between the early twentieth century and the autumn of Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection, using stream-of-consciousness prose and liquid metaphors to blur past and present. The narrator’s research into Stein’s role in shaping modernity becomes a vehicle for exploring her own sense of helplessness and lack of agency in a hyperconnected, war-weary present.
This review matters because it positions Levy’s novel as a meditation on the contemporary condition, drawing parallels between the violence and totalitarian impulses of Stein’s era and today’s political climate. By weaving literary criticism with existential inquiry, the article highlights how fiction can interrogate the feeling of historical stagnation and the struggle to find agency in an oversaturated, crisis-laden moment. It also underscores the enduring relevance of Stein as a cultural figure in discussions of modernity and artistic influence.