An oft-cited rule of fiction is that the protagonist should be active rather than passive, propelling the narrative forward rather than letting events dictate behavior; however, passive protagonists can yield captivating results. The great writer David Szalay understands this. From the couple at the center of Spring to characters in his linked story collections All That Man Is and Turbulence, Szalay has created figures who, if not always wholly acquiescent, are acted upon at least as much as they initiate. That's true of István, the Hungarian teenager whose serendipity brings him to the heights of wealth and power, only for tragedy to complicate his path, in Flesh, a brilliant novel that is as much about the immigrant experience as it is a cautionary tale about capitalism and the allure of eros.

As the title suggests, Flesh has a lot of flesh, although eroticism, none of it glamorous, is only one part of this multifaceted work. The story starts in the late 20th century, when István and his mother move to a new town in Hungary. At school, he eventually makes a friend, "another solitary individual," with whom he talks about sex. That friend brags of having had sex with a girl and tells István that the girl would be happy to extend the favor to him as well. That the meeting doesn't go as planned is the first in a series of encounters that will shape István's worldview and drive his actions--or reactions--throughout the novel.

From the book's earliest scenes, Szalay dazzles with the matter-of-fact prose style already familiar to readers of his work. Sentences are short and punchy. ("The three of them just stand there. The girl looks at István again. He doesn't look at her.") Many paragraphs are only one line long. Dialogue is quick and clipped, with István and others often responding to circumstances with a simple "Okay" or "Yeah," further reinforcing an unassertive approach to life.

This stylistic choice is simple and propulsive, a sleight-of-hand that makes characters, István in particular, relatively passive while giving the novel its forward energy. That technique serves to emphasize the rawness of subsequent sexual encounters, the next of which is with a 42-year-old married woman who lives in his building. István's mother tells him to help the woman by accompanying her to the grocery store. It will come as no surprise that the woman asks István to do more than carry grocery bags. Their secret tryst continues until a tragic accident forces its abrupt end and also an end to István's time in Hungary.

Odd jobs follow, from a stint in the army to one working in a wine cellar, before István emigrates to London and becomes a doorman at a strip club. Then, more serendipity: as he walks back to his flat one night, he sees an old man bleeding on the street. István calls an ambulance and rides with the man to the hospital. The man, it turns out, runs a private security agency and invites István to work for him. Soon, István is raking in a handsome salary, albeit after the man teaches him how to act and dress around high-toned clients. "You need some grooming," the man says, and István obliges.

That's just the beginning of István's upward trajectory. Years later, he becomes the personal Mercedes driver to the wealthy owner of a large Swedish electronics firm, his much-younger wife, and their young son. After the man dies, István marries the now-wealthy widow, and ascends to a more prominent position in business than any of his previous stints could have suggested. But that ascendance is part of a package that will include jealousy, political intrigue, allegations of financial chicanery, and personal tragedy.

Astute readers of literary fiction who enjoy thoughtful stories, stripped-down prose, unpredictable turns, and a counterpoint to traditional narratives about the immigrant experience will find much to savor in Flesh. As with any good book, the themes emerge gradually. What starts out as a seemingly simple tale of one man's wayward journey becomes a profound examination of the perils of capitalism, the appeal of escape, and the chasms that often separate people, whether they're stepchildren who hate their stepfathers or English people who detest immigrants.

Many of Szalay's books have titles that can be interpreted in several ways. There are the ironic titles, like All That Man Is, with its implicit critique of masculinity. Then there are titles like Turbulence, with its portraits of the disordered lives of air passengers on a series of flights. Flesh is another example. The obvious allusion to carnal pleasure also has its Shakespearean side, with some characters keen on revenge and exacting their pound of flesh. That's only one of the many subtleties and layers of complexity readers will find in this rewarding work from one of the most original authors in English letters. --Michael Magras

David Szalay (photo: Julie Papp)

Novelist and short story writer David Szalay is the bard of what one might call literary sadness. In works such as the novel Spring, the linked story collection All That Man Is, and the dozen stories about airplane passengers in the remarkable Turbulence, Szalay offers protagonists contending with various manifestations of loneliness. He performs a similar feat in Flesh, an expansive, propulsive novel about a Hungarian man who embarks upon a series of fraught romantic entanglements, and ends up living a life with more wealth and heartache than anyone could have expected. Flesh will be published by Scribner on April 1, 2025.

Flesh feels more overtly erotic than some of your other works. Why did you decide to explore eroticism and its manifestations in this book?

While it's true that Flesh contains more specific and precise descriptions of sex than some of my previous books, I don't think that it represents a radical departure from them in terms of seeing sex, eroticism, Eros, whatever you want to call it, as one of the main motivating factors of our lives. It's a major factor in most of the stories in All That Man Is and many of those in Turbulence, and, indeed, in a more subtle way perhaps, in my earlier novel London and the South-East. And I don't think it can really be separated from other aspects of our lives. One of the things I was trying to do with Flesh was to show how sexual experiences of various kinds, and our reactions to them, and the secondary events that they set in train, are often decisive in terms of the course that our lives take, even though that may not always be clear at the time.

Another difference is that, in this book, you've focused on one main character rather than several.

I suppose that the themes and ideas of this book were more suited to a narrative that followed a single character, [and] the fact that it's the same character rather than different ones allows somewhat different ideas to be explored--ideas about causality and development, about fate and agency, about how we stay the same in some ways while changing in others. Creating a character who changed while staying the same was one of the things I wanted to do here.

I would add that to talk about the book like this makes it all sound rather abstract and intellectual. In fact I wanted it to be a compellingly intense imaginative experience, and I hope it is.

Throughout your fiction, you portray characters, many of them men, who yearn for higher status but don't quite achieve it, or it proves transitory. What draws you to this type of character, and what appealed to you about István?

I have to say that I think we are all "this type of character"! I have yet to meet anyone who has not at some point in their lives "yearned for higher status." I think it's one of the basic conditions of our existence, and writing novels is a way I have of reflecting on and trying to make sense of that not entirely happy state of affairs.

One of the things that appealed to me about the story of István's life is the scope it offered for exploring this question, because it's complex and at some points in his life he is more motivated by a desire for higher status than at others. (At some points, indeed, and this interests me just as much, he isn't motivated by it at all.)

Also, I wouldn't say he is really a character who is overall defined by such a desire--that is, it's not a trait that he seems to exhibit to a more than average extent. Quite often in fiction--novels, and films and TV as well--we encounter characters who are sort of defined by it, which carries the suggestion that it's an unusual trait, which as I've said I don't think it is.

The titles for many of your works are either ironic or open to multiple meanings. Flesh relates to eroticism, but there's a Shakespearean element, too, with some characters intent on revenge--their pound of flesh, as it were. What did you hope to convey by that title?

I was very conscious of the word's various different connotations when I wrote the novel, including its Shakespearean and biblical connotations.

I think the main thing I wanted to convey by using it as the title was the fact that I don't see our lives only, or even primarily, or even at all, as a series of cognitive processes. We are living physical bodies, and that fact shapes and defines every aspect our existence. There is no aspect of our existence that does not proceed from that, including cognition in all its forms. If that sounds reductive, I don't mean it to be. I just want to look at our lives in that context because I think it's the best way to understand them, to understand who and what we are.

One could read Flesh as a critique of capitalism. What are your thoughts on the allure of capitalism and its effect on people like István?

The truth is that I regard capitalism, very broadly defined, as almost inescapable. Capitalism, as I see it, is a way of distributing power in society. It tends to distribute power very unequally. But no society that I'm aware of has ever distributed power except very unequally, and no society that I'm aware of has ever operated entirely without market mechanisms, though they might often remain informal.

The unfairness inherent in it is something that I find it hard to make peace with, however, and the story of Flesh probably is indeed, among other things, a critique of that basic injustice, or at least an expression of revulsion at it.

A theme that runs through this book is that of escape, or the need for isolation. What role do you think escape and isolationism play in society?

The very inescapability of various aspects of our existence--the yearnings that originate in our physical being and can only ever be partially satisfied, the imperfectability of societies that are necessarily reflections of human imperfection, our mortality and that of people we love--all these things tend of course to nurture a desire for escape.

So the novel can perhaps be seen as István's attempt to escape from his human fate, from his own flesh. The other characters too, of course. To escape through sex, stories, games, drugs, religion, whatever.

What draws you to stories about gulfs between people? Do you see differences in that regard between Hungary and England, the two settings of this book?

England and Hungary are the two places that I know best, so when I was thinking, a few years ago, about a new novel, ideally I wanted a story that involved both. Since a very large number of Hungarians have emigrated to the U.K. in the last 20 years, a story about one of them seemed like an obvious way to go.

I think there's a kind of basic human level on which almost all places are pretty much alike. When I travel I'm as often struck by the similarities between places as by the differences. Having said that, England and Hungary do feel different--perhaps more different than they did 10 or 15 years ago. In an American context, maybe it would help to use the analogy of red and blue states--England, particularly southern England, is very much a blue state (maybe New York?), and Hungary is very much a red one (Alabama?)--and the sense of cultural difference between them has sharpened in the last decade.

Why do you like to write about itinerant characters such as István?

I guess the simplest answer to that question is: "Because I am one."

I don't feel entirely at home anywhere.

Maybe being in that situation encourages me to think more deeply about the human condition.

Or maybe that's just pompous bullshit.

In any case I am undoubtedly drawn to stories that involve people operating out of their familiar context, and Flesh is certainly a case in point. --Michael Magras