David Szalay
Author of All That Man Is
About the Author
Works by David Szalay
Londyn 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1974
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Canada
UK - Birthplace
- Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Places of residence
- Montréal, Québec, Canada
UK - Education
- Oxford University
- Occupations
- radio scriptwriter
novelist - Awards and honors
- Granta's Best of Young British Novelists (2013)
- Short biography
- He was born in Canada, moved to the UK the following year and has lived there ever since. He studied at Oxford University and has written a number of radio dramas for the BBC.[1] He won the Betty Trask Award for his first novel, London and the South-East, along with the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Since then he has written two other novels: Innocent (2009) and Spring (2011). He has also recently been named one of The Telegraph's Top 20 British Writers Under 40[2] and has also made it onto Granta magazine's 2013 list of the Best of Young British Novelists
Members
Reviews
Daunted once again by the skills of a young author, [author:David Szalay|1360792], Canadian by birth and one of Granta's Top Novelists under Forty or whatever category they chose in 2013. [book:All That Man Is|26046318] at first is disconcerting because it is nine separate stories, largely unconnected, of dissatisfied men at various stages in their lives, living in European countries such as Italy, Cyprus, England, Hungary, Croatia, Belgium, and contemplating their futures through an episode of failed relationships or financial doubt. Most of the tales contain "a maelstrom of despair" as bad luck. hopeless sex and missed opportunities take their toll yet I couldn't stop reading, even knowing I would leave this particular character at the end of the chapter. The men look in the mirror. often hungover, to see "a dead-eyed flaccidity...a flushed indifference" in contemplating their future and current crisis. "Let us love what is eternal and not what is transient" reads a description in a Ravenna abbey in the last chapter as the protagonist contemplates the final mysteries. [Note to sister who spurns bleak stories, you can skip this book.] Its structure grew on me as I too contemplated the greater schemes of life and what it is left after seven decades.
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I've been in a reading funk lately, and this book hasn't helped; I seem to have been labouring over it for weeks.
The blurb on the back cover states it is a 'novel of nine men', but really it's nine independent stories about nine different men. The only common thread is that they are all indescribably bleak, full of disappointment with life on various scales.
I don't often think about the sex of the authors I read, but Szalay's narrative feels very masculine. Perhaps it's a Mars and Venus thing, but his characters felt emotionless and one-dimensional even when he was trying to convey emotion, and it was difficult to like any of them.
3 stars - well written, but I just didn't like this author's voice.… (more)
The blurb on the back cover states it is a 'novel of nine men', but really it's nine independent stories about nine different men. The only common thread is that they are all indescribably bleak, full of disappointment with life on various scales.
I don't often think about the sex of the authors I read, but Szalay's narrative feels very masculine. Perhaps it's a Mars and Venus thing, but his characters felt emotionless and one-dimensional even when he was trying to convey emotion, and it was difficult to like any of them.
3 stars - well written, but I just didn't like this author's voice.… (more)
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Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 12
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 1,016
- Popularity
- #25,359
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 54
- ISBNs
- 67
- Languages
- 10
He sells advertising space in obscure European Trade magazines.
He gets poached to another company takes some of his colleagues with him but Pauls job fails to materialise.
He then goes into a downward spiral has problems with his wife Heather and step kids.
Paul takes a job in the local Sainsburys working nights as he is so fed up with Sales.
Heather is having an affair with their neighbour Martin. He works in Sainsburys as fresh produce manager.
Their is suspicion's that Martin is doing some under cover deals. Paul gets roped into a plot to expose him. It goes a bit rubbish but it exposes Martin he gets sacked. Paul gets Heather back and moves back to a Sales job. Bit boring in places.… (more)