All That Man Is
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Shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, David Szalay's All That Man Is is the brilliantly observed, large-hearted novel of stories that has redefined contemporary writing.
Set in various cities across Europe, this virtuoso collection of stories from David Szalay explores the ever-shifting terrain of manhood through the eyes of men who are at various stages in their lives. From the emotional angst of the teenage years to the gnawing aches of old age, these stories, in all their disturbing darkness, offer sharp psychological insight into the complex nature of what defines man, as characters grapple with pride and greed, jealousy and love, grief and loneliness. Funny and heart-achingly sad, these stories are invariably true to life as they contemplate all that man is.
About this Author
DAVID SZALAY was born in Montreal in 1974, and moved to the U.K. the following year. He went to Oxford University and has written a number of radio dramas for the BBC. He won the Betty Trask Prize for his first novel, London and the South-East (2008), along with the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He was recently named one of the Telegraph's "Top 20 British Writers under 40," a Granta Best of Young British Novelists in 2013, and he won the 2016 Plimpton Prize for Fiction, awarded by the Paris Review for an outstanding contribution to the magazine. His most recent novel, All That Man Is, was published in April 2016. It was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and won the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize. The novel was selected as a Book of the Year by the Guardian, Telegraph, New Statesman, TLS, Financial Times, the New York Times, The Paris Review, Harper's Bazaar, NPR, and BBC Culture, among others. His book of stories, Turbulence, was published in December 2018. In October 2019, David was awarded both the prestigious Edge Hill Short Story Prize and the Reader's Choice Award. These days, David lives in Budapest.
Reviews
Praise for All That Man Is:
"[If] you are unfamiliar with [Szalay's] work, let me urge you to read him since, on this evidence, he is one of those rare writers with skill in all the disciplines that first-rate fiction requires. Szalay's writing is virtuosic whether observing external realities or psychology . . . he also has a prose style that marries nuance and precision with a kinetic cadence; his language is energetically alive throughout. . . . These are the best stories I've read for ages."
--The Guardian
"All That Man Is [is] the perfect vehicle for his [Szalay's] particular talent. That talent is noticing. Like John Updike, he not only perceives the banal, everyday world in an acute and photographic way but he can also translate it into high-definition prose. All That Man Is is a showcase for Szalay's virtuosic range."
--Telegraph
"Each story is a beautifully crystallised vision of what it is for a man to be a particular age . . . Szalay's forensic untangling of their psyches, and his talent for painting delicious destinations . . . make you want to journey with them to the bitter end. . . . It's hard to imagine reading a better book this year."
--The Times
"His [Szalay's] new book is populated by small men with oversized ambitions. . . . Far from celebrating man's infinite variety, the book reveals his endless repetitiveness. One of Szalay's strengths is that he is able to reveal his characters' limitations - and, quite often, their absurdities - without mocking them. . . . [He] is capable of conjuring tenderness from any situation. . . . [Readers] will find a great deal to enjoy in these pages, and further evidence that Szalay is one of the best fortysomething writers we have."
--The Guardian
"Each story grips the reader by the throat. We fully inhabit their progression of heroes and finally face the dreadful truth of the human condition: that nothing is eternal, not us, not our children, the human race, the Earth nor the stars. Rarely has it been so brilliantly and chillingly spelled out."
--Daily Mail
Praise for David Szalay's work:
"He is a writer who can take you anywhere."
--The Sunday Times
"Anyone who appreciated Martin Amis's Koba the Dread and Orlando Figes's The Whisperers will love it, as will fans of The Lives of Others or Burnt by the Sun. As with both films, the theme of silent, regret-filled horror is beautifully, chillingly captured."
--Viv Groskop, The Observer
"Like Milan Kundera, Szalay positions his characters somewhere along the endlessly contested lines that he draws between comedy and something subtler, less showy, and altogether sadder than tragedy."
--The Guardian, Chris Cleave, author of Little Bee
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