-
See Our Best Book
Club Books of 2026!
Summary | Discuss | Reviews | More Information | More Books
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.
Book Club Reading List 2026
...in Blues by Imani Perry Jun 10 - Good Material by Dolly Alderton July – no meeting Aug 12 - The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai Sep 9 - Flesh by David Szalay Oct 14 - North Woods by Daniel Mason Nov 17 - The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits Dec 9 - The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
-Anne_Glasgow
2025 Booker Award Winner Announced!
https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/20170/flesh Flesh by David Szalay won the 2025 Booker Award today. Has anyone here read it? I just added it to my Kindle.
-kim.kovacs
2025 Booker Shortlist announced
...r/22852/the-land-in-winter The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/20170/flesh Flesh by David Szalay What do you think? Are any of these on your list?
-kim.kovacs
Kirkus finalists announced!
...( Knopf) https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781668030707 The Slip by Lucas Schaefer (Simon & Schuster) https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781982122799 Flesh by David Szalay (Scribner) NONFICTION https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780385548076 King of Kings : The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastro...
-kim.kovacs
Booker Longlist announced!
...and Sunny by Kiran Desai Audition by Katie Kitamura The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller Endling by Maria Reva Flesh by David Szalay Seascraper by Benjamin Wood Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga BookBrowse has reviewed four so far: https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_n...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (7/10/2025)
I just finished Flesh by David Szalay. I am not sure how I feel about it. The main character Istvan has a very strange life. Also the ending is very sad. Would like to hear from anyone el...
-Paula_Walters
"[A] heartbreaking and revelatory portrait...This tragedy will leave readers in awe." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An emotionally acute study of manliness." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Reckoning, in a clear-eyed and reasonable way, with the reality of fate's cold indifference...[Szalay is] a master of the flinty, spare sentence...at its heart, Flesh is about more than just the things that go unsaid: it is also about what is fundamentally unsayable, the ineffable things that sit at the centre of every life, hovering beyond the reach of language" —The Guardian
"Flesh is at once intricate and spacious, it flows both fast and deep. There's brilliance on every page. Szalay is an ingenious conductor of time, and of the fates and forces that give shape to a life." —Samantha Harvey, author of Booker Prize-winning author of Orbital
"I can't think of another book that has lately haunted me more than David Szalay's Flesh—a book that so majestically and so beautifully depicts our journeys through this ever-changing world; and how we're all caught and carried by time and tide. When the world tests us, this is the story we'll return to, the one that will make us want to keep faith and believe, not only in the power of literature, but in each other." —Paul Yoon, author of The Hive and the Honey
"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
This information about Flesh was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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.
The Sister's Curse
by Nicola Solvinic
The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes
by Chanel Cleeton
The Vanishing Place
by Zoë Rankin
 (1).gif)
What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading, you wish the author that wrote it was a ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
