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.”
Mr. Szalay instills his characters with almost no inner life. The descriptions of each scene are ruthlessly pared back and the dialogue is almost comically minimalist ... These reductions can feel exaggerated—Mr. Szalay pushes his flat, desiccated writing style to some eye-rolling extremes—but the effect is hypnotic ... Taboo for so long, the female body has become a subject of celebratory interest in contemporary novels; meanwhile, explorations into the male sex drive have been tacitly proscribed. Mr. Szalay turns a cold gaze on those urges and makes no promises that we’ll be comfortable with what he sees.
A gentle yet deeply affecting novel about a taciturn man who overcomes abuse and loss early in life to stumble into transitory contentment — if not quite true happiness — as an adult ... Fascinating and unexpected ... If you’ve ever woken up to the realization that your life has become something you never planned for, anticipated, or desired, you’ll likely find Flesh all too human.
Uncommonly gifted Hungarian-English novelist David Szalay ... Cool, remote ... The novel works because Szalay’s simplicity is, like Hemingway’s, the fatty sort that resonates ... Time moves with an uncanny fluidity ... I admired this book from front to back without ever quite liking it, without ever quite giving in to it. Sometimes those are the ones you itch to read again. Sometimes once is more than enough.
