Sunday Books & Culture - Fiction

Drew Gallagher reviews the picaresque 2025 Book Prize winner “Flesh” by David Szalay.

FLESH

By David Szalay

Published by Scribner (April 1, 2025)
Paperback $18.99
Audiobook $14.95

Reviewed by Drew Gallagher

Since its inception in 1969, the Booker Prize for fiction has become one of the premier literary awards in the world and can vault a book and its author to increased sales along with more lucrative book tours and speaking engagements. (When I went to Tails and Tales downtown to see if they had this year’s winner, the owner joked that she really wished the Booker judges would give booksellers the heads up so they would have it in stock after the winner is announced. They were kind enough to order it for me.)

This year’s Booker winner is Flesh by David Szalay which, I believe features, more sex than any of the other previous winners (though I have not read all of them). The book tours and speaking engagements should be standing room only.

Sex is not the cornerstone of “Flesh” any more than the chain smoking or flitting from job-to-job of the protagonist, Istvan. This is a book about the life of an unremarkable man who exists in a world he sees as unworthy of his apologies.

Reviewers have stumbled all over themselves to use “picaresque” as the description of this novel since they were not around when Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, and their English professors in college told them “picaresque” was an important term for books about normal people without much narrative flow. There is no one as remarkable as Dulcinea or Sancho Panza in Flesh and that is by authorial design.

Szalay presents Istvan’s life with little embellishment, so a reader is left to their own impressions and judgment. And there is a strong desire to judge Istvan harshly for no other reason than most of his responses are those of a high school student being grilled about their day with “Okay”, “Yes”, and “Fine” featuring prominently. It can be infuriating to read page upon page of one-word answers except for the fact that this is, upon reflection, much of what actual life consists of, as much as we might want it to be otherwise.

There is genius in this work, and it lies in a compelling plainness that propels Istvan through the world. The book is far from boring and not just the sex parts. Things do happen in Istvan’s life, but it would be a disservice to readers to reveal them here because they are jarring and remarkable amid the mundane.

Suffice it to say that when Flesh opens, Istvan is a teenager living in Hungary. When Flesh ends, Istvan is an older man but once again living in Hungary in these modern times. What happens in between is a life. Regardless of whether or not you like Istvan or the life he leads, there is a lot to like in this novel. It’s far more than just “Okay.”

Drew Gallagher is a freelance writer residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the second-most-prolific book reviewer and first video book reviewer in the 136-year history of the Free Lance-Star Newspaper. He aspires to be the second-most-prolific book reviewer in the history of FXBG Advance and the first Secretary of Levity for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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