David Szalay's latest novel, Flesh, follows a young Hungarian ex-convict navigating life in the UK after serving in Iraq. Szalay, who grew up in London and later lived in Hungary, draws from his own feelings of being between two cultures. The novel addresses themes of identity, the struggles of masculinity, and societal structures influenced by money. Szalay's desire to portray the complexities of male experience is evident as he examines personal demands against social expectations.
"I decided to abandon a book I'd started in 2017. It just wasn't working, so it felt like a weight off my shoulders; nevertheless, I was under contract and had to come up with something."
"Even for the decades I lived in London, just by virtue of the name that I have, there was always a sense of being... outsider is too strong a word; I was more of an outsider in Hungary, certainly, but a kind of insider-outsider, because I come from a Hungarian background but don't speak Hungarian very well."
"My aim was to try to be as honest as possible about what it's actually like to be a male body in the world to be a body that has its own demands, and how you manage, accommodate, satisfy and fail to satisfy those demands, and what experiences that leads you into."
"The need for money, or wanting more money, often acts as a crucial driving force in the narrative, as it tends to structure our society in a deep way."
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