Biography mingles with fiction as Levy explores the avant-garde writer through the story of three female friends in Paris Biography mingles with fiction as Levy explores the avant-garde writer through the story of three female friends in Paris T he narrator of Deborah Levy’s witty scherzo of a “fiction” – “novel” isn’t the word for this uncategorisable book – thinks that Gertrude Stein would have liked Sigmund Freud. She imagines them enjoying a cigar together while their wives make small talk.