Flesh

Name: Flesh
Author: David Szalay
ISBN: 9780224099783

David Szalay

award won

score

Flesh

David Szalay

award won

score

#327 of 8,085 books · #80 in Crime & Thriller

Won the Booker Prize (2025). Also shortlisted or longlisted for 1 other award.

Teenaged Istvâan 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 Istvâan 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 Istvâan 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, Istvâan 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.

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