In this episode of Between the Covers with Danielle, I take a deep, honest look at Flesh by David Szalay, the Booker Prize–winning novel that has divided readers and critics alike.
Flesh follows István, a Hungarian man whose life unfolds from adolescence to old age through a series of formative experiences shaped by class, trauma, masculinity, migration, and emotional silence. Told in Szalay’s famously spare, minimalist style, the novel strips away interior monologue and moral commentary to examine a life driven less by choice than by circumstance and the demands of the body itself.
In this episode, I explore:
Why Flesh is best understood as a novel of the body rather than the mind
How Szalay portrays modern masculinity without sentimentality or redemption
The role of class and social mobility in shaping István’s rise and collapse
Why the novel’s emotional restraint is both its greatest strength and its most challenging feature
And why I ultimately rated Flesh a thoughtful but conflicted three stars
This is not a comfort read, and this is not a redemptive story — but it is a serious, uncompromising work of contemporary literary fiction that asks difficult questions about agency, identity, and what it means to live a life without language for your own pain.
If you enjoy literary fiction, Booker Prize novels, character studies, and thoughtful book discussions that don’t shy away from complexity, this episode is for you.