Flesh
By David Szalay
Scribner, April 1, 2025
From Booker Prize finalist David Szalay, a propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man whose future is derailed by a series of events that he is unable to control.
Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbor—a married woman close to his mother’s age, whom he begrudgingly helps with errands—as his only companion. But as these periodical encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István himself can barely understand, his life soon spirals out of control, ending in a violent accident that leaves a man dead.
What follows is a rocky trajectory that sees István emigrate from Hungary to London, where he moves from job to job before finding steady work as a driver for London’s billionaire class. At each juncture, his life is affected by the goodwill or self-interest of strangers. Through it all, István is a calm, detached observer of his own life, and through his eyes we experience a tragic twist on an immigrant “success story,” brightened by moments of sensitivity, softness, and Szalay’s keen observation.
Fast-paced and immersive, Flesh reveals István’s life through intimate moments, with lovers, employers, and family members, charted over the course of decades. As the story unfolds, the tension between what is seen and unseen, what can and cannot be said, hurtles forward until finally—with everything at stake—sudden tragedy again throws life as István knows it in jeopardy. Spare and penetrating, Flesh traces the imperceptible but indelible contours of unresolved trauma and its aftermath amid the precarity and violence of an ever-globalizing Europe with incisive insight, unyielding pathos, and startling humanity.
Praise for Turbulence
“Masterful… Its intensity is surprising… Much of the fun of Turbulence is discovering how Szalay will upend the reader’s perspective of a character from one chapter to the next... Turbulence suggests that such events might shape us, but they don’t define us.” –The Washington Post
“Turbulence is a sleek machine with a cool tone... Szalay is a gifted writer.”
–Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“Profound… Unexpectedly moving… Szalay’s gift for inhabiting entirely different lives is as remarkable and spooky as ever.” –The Times
“Presents us with a series of lives that feel at once profoundly particular and yet also emblematic, a portrait of our species at a time of crisis... What Turbulence shares with its predecessor is Szalay’s characteristically effortless prose, his ability to distill lives into vignettes, the sense of an author whose curiosity about his fellow humans is boundless. The 21st century, Turbulence suggests, is taking place several miles above the earth, or in overlit and anonymous airports. Szalay is our greatest chronicler of these rootless, tradeworn places, and the desperate, itinerant lives of those who inhabit them.” –The Guardian
“A (world) tour de force, an exploration in fiction of the concept of six degrees of separation… The chapters are tiny cross sections of lives, lovingly examined under the writer’s microscope. The result is a book that is high concept but—thanks to Szalay’s gift for compression and the same empathetic imagination that was on display in All That Man Is—never gimmicky. Szalay has devised an ingenious way to accommodate enormous range in a miniature form. Subtle, smart—a triumph.”
–Kirkus, starred review
“Crisp and clever… Writing with a restraint that comes close to minimalism, Szalay boils down each moment to its most vital and crystalline essence.” –Vanity Fair
“Turbulence is somehow light yet also quite moving, offering readers deep, empathetic connections with men and women whose lives differ dramatically from those of one another. Szalay’s range is impressive, given the tendency of many novelists to circumscribe their stories within a particular culture or social circle, usually the one most familiar to them. By contrast, Szalay draws his characters from a variety of nationalities, economic circumstances, religious identities, and stages of life, yet all are distinct individuals who are entirely believable and captivating. . . . Szalay is particularly adept at immersing us in the consciousness of men who, whether doctors or gardeners, rage against their powerlessness in the wider world and in the smaller world of their personal lives. That he does so with such economy is what makes Turbulence masterful... Compelling... I wanted more time with every person in Szalay’s book.” –Christian Science Monitor
“Elegant... Impressive... Page by page, Szalay’s mixture of directness and withholding looks increasingly masterly.” –Financial Times
“A satisfying, globetrotting narrative.” –AM New York
“Turbulence shows the ways in which [airports] act as spaces where any and all worlds may converge, often in profound ways. Through characters who are diverse in national identity, religion, socio-economic status, background and circumstance, Szalay is able to evoke a range of emotions perhaps unavailable to a more traditionally organized novel. The contrasting perspectives of Szalay's characters are what make this novel conceptually impressive, but it is the individual characters who animate the novel from page to page. Because the time with each character is so brief, readers are transported directly into the midst of some of their greatest crises, allowing access to an intimate connection it might otherwise take several hundred pages to build. Written in clear and penetrating prose, Szalay's Turbulence is a refreshing and empathetic take on the cosmopolitan novel.”
–Shelf Awareness, starred review
“Especially striking is how easily [Szalay] inhabits diverse perspectives… He pulls off this imaginative feat because his focus is on age-old themes of mortality and desire… A willingness to leave dots unjoined is one of the virtues that make Mr. Szalay’s fiction so rewarding.” –The Economist
“Szalay’s spare writing packs an emotional punch, his impressionistic sketches capturing in just a few pages the pivotal moments of entire lives. Turbulence is an inventive examination of the ties that bind us together and the ease with which they can be broken.” –Booklist
“In this patchwork of deeply felt vignettes, Szalay turns a loving eye on 12 disparate strangers, each of them drawn together while in transit around the world. As their lives intersect in far-flung cities ranging from London to Dakar, Szalay explores the miraculous ability of our shared humanity to lift us from loneliness.” –Esquire
“Szalay innovates in this ingenious new book… He knows about people… Stark and spare, Turbulence is an impressive novel.” –The Spectator
“It is at once uplifting and humbling, the bittersweet essence of life itself.”
–The Toronto Star
“[Szalay is] a master... Turbulence, told so limpidly that it may seem quite slight, is a chilling achievement.” –Evening Standard
“A Canterbury Tales for our modern era.” –Lit Hub
“Impressive… Swift, surprising… Skillfully done.” –The Times Literary Supplement
“Szalay has given us some brilliantly rendered slices of life to enjoy... There’s barely a story here which isn’t in some way engaging and absorbing, the author’s compassion and involvement with his characters shining through even in their times of deepest isolation.” –Scotland Herald
“Deftly wrought... reads like a turbo-charged daisy-chain... appallingly immersive.”
–Daily Mail
“What is perhaps the most clever and profound about this book is how the characters in each chapter are linked to the one that precedes it, coming full circle at the end.”
–Orange County Register
About the Author
David Szalay is the author of Turbulence, London and the South-East, and All That Man Is. He’s been awarded the Gordon Burn Prize and The Paris Review Plimpton Prize for Fiction and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Born in Canada, he grew up in London and now lives in Vienna. His most recent novel is Flesh.
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