Literary Fiction spotlight
Flesh
by David Szalay
From a Hungarian housing estate to Mayfair money, a life told almost entirely in what its owner will not say.
Buy the book
István says 'okay' and things happen to him. A teenage affair, a prison sentence, a war, a fortune, a fall.
Publisher's blurb
Synopsis
Szalay tracks one man across four decades and several social classes, writing sex, violence and money with the same flat, forensic attention. The blankness is the point: the reader supplies the interior life that István cannot, and the effect is closer to a thriller than the description suggests.
The editorial feature
A masterclass in withheld information. Booker-listed and deservedly so - the dialogue is almost comically bare, yet by the last hundred pages the accumulated silence is unbearable.
Book details
- Genre
- Literary Fiction
- Released
- 3 April 2025
- Publisher
- Jonathan Cape
- Extent
- 368 pages
- Featured on
- 3 April 2025
Where to buy
Flesh is available from these retailers.
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