Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016
‘The day is windless.
It’s not a joke
Life is not a joke.’
What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a man here and now, in this place, in this time?
Szalay’s fourth novel offers a glimpse into the nine men’s lives. Men from across Europe, from different backgrounds; men like Gábor, staring out from a taxi window at a glossy London light heading into the city in search of money and Bérnard, stuck in a seedy hotel bar in Cyprus. Alien worlds and disparate lives collide as Szalay reveals a common struggle, a drive to perpetually move forward, to be successful and to find meaning amidst the chaos.As the stories wind from the lives of feckless students and desperate emigres to an ambitious journalist and retired civil servant, Szalay gives a sense of whole lives lived out through snapshot glimpses. It amounts to a powerful and intimate portrait of male identity in the modern world and a biting critique of fractured society.
Szalay has undoubtedly written what will become an iconic testimony of post-Brexit European identity. Shining a light on how modern masculinity is moulded, tested and constrained by issues of nationalism and fundamental economic and political transition.
Nine men, nine very different stories, one extraordinary novel.
‘…these nine stories about very different men are replete with richly observed humanity, caught on the page as if in the midst of lives that extend backwards and forwards beyond the time we spend with them.’ The Guardian
David Szalay was born in Canada but moved to the UK shortly after. He was named one of The Telegraph’s top 20 authors under 40 in 2010. All That a Man Is is his fourth novel.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9780224099769
Number of pages: 448
Weight: 543 g
Dimensions: 204 x 144 x 39 mm
All That Man is is more of a collection of short stories than a novel however Szalays successfully links these short stories together by the theme of what it is to be a man.
It depicts the stories of nine men set in...
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It's almost odd that this really does feel like a novel despite the fact that its nine 'chapters' are technically unconnected short stories (with the exception of the first and last, which feature... More
In nine short stories he introduces us to nine different men, some young, some old, all highly flawed and all seemingly at a low point or key moment in their lives. The narrative is often grammatically terse and the... More
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