"Flesh" by David Szalay

 

This novel, which won the 2025 Booker Prize, follows the life of a Hungarian man called Istvan all the way from adolescence to old age. It is narrated in the third person, almost always from Istvan's PoV, and in the present tense. Its dialogue is remarkable, consisting of the short, frequently single word utterances of everyday speech. As reader, I gleaned a feeling that each character was isolated within his or her own head, trying to communicate what they feel and to understand what their friends and family are feeling, but frequently failing. In fact Istvan often fails to understand why he has done the things he does. 

There's also a sense that few of the characters have agency. The most frequent word is 'okay'; Istvan and his son are fundamentally reactive. Istvan hardly ever initiates anything, but accepts the plans that others make for him, going with the flow.

Some of the plot seems to echo Hamlet with Istvan as Claudius and his  stepson Thomas ("a young man, dressed mostly in black"; Ch 9) as the self-destructive Prince. Is the novel's title linked to Hamlet's first 'suicide' soliloquy: "Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt"? Or to the line in the 'to be or not to be' soliloquy which references "the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to?"

But it doesn't sound like Hamlet! Shakespearean blank verse seems baroque in contrast to the minimalist prose of this novel. It has a crisp, refreshing feel which emphasises and accentuates the few occasions when, with stark clarity, he discusses Istvan's feelings. For example: "Perhaps it's at that age, he thinks, that you first have the sense that you and your body are not entirely identical ... because some part of you seems to lag the transformation of your body, and to be surprised by it ... and it starts to make sense to talk about it as if it was something slightly separate from yourself, even while you seem more powerless than ever to deny it what it wants." (Ch 8) Puberty encapsulated.

Selected quotes:

• "He has this feeling, with women, that it's hard to have an experience that's entirely new, that doesn't feel like something has already happened, so that it never feels like all that much is at stake." (Ch 5)
• "You don't know what to do when something like that happens. The shock is so great." (in between Ch 8 and Ch 9)
• "He desperately wants to believe that his son still exists - still exists in some actual sense, not just as a memory. ... He knows it's not true, that's the problem." (Ch 9)

June 2026; 349 pages
First published by Jonathan Cape in 2025
My paperback edition was issued by Vintage in 2026

This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God

Synopsis: spoiler alert

As a teenager, Istvan loses his virginity to a next door neighbour, with whom he has an affair. After she stops it, he has an argument with her husband whom he pushes downstairs, killing him. He spends time in a juvenile detention centre.

He joins the army and receives a medal for his action during an ambush in which his best friend dies. He gets PTSD.

In England, he works first as a doorman at a Soho club and later as a security driver. He begins an affair with Helen, his employer's wife. They fall in love. After his employer dies of cancer they marry. The son, Thomas, will inherit all the money when he turns 25; in the meantime they persuade the lawyer in charge of the trust fund to lend Istvan the money he needs to develop properties. He becomes extremely rich. He has a son called Jacob. Thomas, realising what is happening, accuses his mother and stepfather of 'stealing' money from the trust fund.

In a car accident, Helen and Jacob die.

Thomas sues Istvan for the improper loans. Istvan and his company both go bankrupt. He returns to live in Hungary with his mother, becoming a security guard.