Flesh: From the Booker-shortlisted author of All That Man Is
David Szalay
'Brilliance on every page' Samantha Harvey
'A revelatory novel' Sunday Times
‘So brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money' David Nicholls
‘How do I get out of a reading slump? This is the book to do that’ Rhianna Dhillon, BBC Radio 4
Through chance, luck and choice, one man’s life takes him from a modest apartment in Hungary to the elite society of London – in this captivating new novel about the forces that make and break our lives
Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman close to his mother’s age – as his only companion. As these encounters shift into a clandestine relationship, István’s life spirals out of control.
Years later, rising through the ranks from the army to the elite circles of London's super-rich, he navigates the twenty-first century's tides of money and power. Torn between love, intimacy, status, and wealth, his newfound riches threaten to undo him completely.
'So much searing insight into the way we live now' Observer
‘Refreshing, illuminating and true’ Financial Times
'Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant' Tessa Hadley
‘Utterly engrossing and I read it all in a day’ 5* reader review
‘I was hooked and tried to read this book with any spare moment that I had' 5* reader review
A ‘Best Book of 2025’ in the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail
Product Details
About David Szalay
Reviews for Flesh: From the Booker-shortlisted author of All That Man Is
Samantha Harvey, author of Orbital Flesh is a wonderful novel – so brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money
David Nicholls A superb novel, written with great terse authority and allure: mordant, knowing and disturbingly wise
William Boyd This is a marvellous novel. Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant. David Szalay is an extraordinary writer
Tessa Hadley ‘Refreshing, illuminating and true… a moving work of art with a plot that compels and surprises and devastates’
Financial Times [A] compulsive look at wealth and power, love and sex… Szalay has that rare ability to convey entire galaxies in the sparest writing
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Flesh…has ensnared me… It’s rare to find prose this spare that doesn’t feel affect, but Szalay handles surface and depth with skill, as only great novelists can. Flesh is a revelatory novel
Sunday Times
In István David Szalay has created a modern existential antihero in the grand tradition of Camus and Dostoevsky. Amid the random accidents and desultory decisions that shape his life, and come to feel like fate, he is at once a cool observer and a towering presence. Taut, spare and perfectly structured, Flesh reads like a gripping thriller which slowly gathers to itself the emotional power of classical tragedy
Carys Davies, author of Clear A propulsive novel from the Booker-shortlisted writer about the forces that make — and break — a life
Financial Times,
Books to Look Out For 2025
It’s been a long time since I’ve been swallowed whole by a novel the way I was by this one… [There’s] so much searing insight into the way we live now. It’s a masterpiece
Observer,
Books to Look Out For 2025