“ The wonderful David Szalay is back with Turbulence (Cape), an Editor's Choice for me. ”
Alice O'Keeffe, Bookseller
“ [David Szalay's] mastery of form is evident: with deft touches he builds a tangible world. ”
Hannah Shaddock, Radio Times
“ More tales of mortality from a master of the genre... [Turbulence] is a chilling achievement. ”
David Sexton, Evening Standard
“ I was intrigued by the premise and the first story didn't disappoint, capturing that altered state which being cooped up in [an aeroplane] seems to invoke. ”
Kate Chisholm, Spectator
“ Beautifully and delicately told. Each perfectly-formed story is part of a bigger narrative, as Szalay explores the way our actions influence those around us, and highlights the fact that while our technologically connected planet seems to be growing smaller, the people living upon it have grown more isolated from one another. ”
Christian Lisseman, Big Issue
“ Ingenious… [David Szalay] knows about people… Stark and spare, Turbulence is an impressive novel. ”
Brian Martin, Spectator
“ Reading David Szalay is like receiving a series of electric shocks: his preference for short, sharp sketches, rather than a single, linear plot, means that his books deny the reader the comforts of conventional, more languid storytelling… Szalay’s stories may be over in just a matter of minutes, but they are violently, appallingly immersive. ”
Claire Allfree, Daily Mail
“ Turbulence is attempting to do on a global scale what Szalay’s last book, All That Man Is, did for Europe: present us with a series of lives that feel at once profoundly particular and yet also emblematic, a portrait of our species at a time of crisis… The 21st century, Turbulence suggests, is taking place several miles above the earth, or in overlit and anonymous airports. Szalay is our greatest chronicler of these rootless, tradeworn places, and the desperate, itinerant lives of those who inhabit them. ”
Alex Preston, Observer
“ One of the impressive things about [Turbulence] is the speed and deftness with which Szalay convinces the reader that he knows what it's like to be an Indian guest worker in Qatar, an upmarket journalist in Sao Paulo, or a prosperous Senegalese businessman... Szalay's mixture of directness and withholding looks increasingly masterly. ”
Financial Times
“ Especially striking, in Mr Szalay’s recent work [Turbulence], is how easily he inhabits diverse perspectives… A willingness to leave the dots unjoined is one of the virtues that make Mr Szalay's fiction so rewarding. ”
Economist
“ Affecting… an ambitious, realist and fascinating sequenced collection that often courts discomfort. ”
Mika Ross-Southall, Sunday Times
“ Szalay conjures up his characters and locations deftly and elegantly, giving each subtle vignette a lingering resonance. ”
Anthony Gardner, Mail on Sunday
“ Szalay’s gift for inhabiting entirely different lives is as remarkable and spooky as ever. ”
Andrew Billen, The Times
“ Embedded in each story is a similar moment of jeopardy, disrupting the illusion to remind us how “normal life” is as unlikely and precarious as flight… Each chapter is extremely short, and yet, with impressive economy, Szalay establishes both a new character and sense of security, only to shatter it with a swift, surprising reveal. ”
Claire Lowdon, Times Literary Supplement
“ There’s barely a story here which isn’t in some way engaging and absorbing, the author’s compassion and involvement with characters shining through even in times of deepest isolation. ”
Alastair Mabbott, The Herald
“ Each story is wonderfully imagined, with a pleasing absence of authorial sermonising. Ambitious and haunting, these expertly executed vignette – confident in their concision and control – seem hard to improve upon. ”
Jude Cook
“ What Szalay does so well is the minute-by-minute apprehension of the close-up world…combined…with an impressively global vision… It’s part of Szalay’s genius that he can encompass the distance between the two. ”
Justine Jordan, Guardian
“ As Szalay consistently uproots his reader, proliferating characters and locations, the collection could be seen as an experiment in the limits of sympathy… the perfect foil to some heart-stoppingly beautiful prose. ”
Sophie Ratcliffe, Daily Telegraph
“ Powerful stuff… incisive writing. ”
Rob Doyle, Irish Times
Hardback
9781787331167
December 3, 2018
Jonathan Cape
144 pages
Paperback
9781529111972
October 1, 2019
Vintage
144 pages
EBook
9781473561243
December 6, 2018
Vintage Digital
144 pages
1
LGW – MAD
On the way home from the hospital, she asked him if he wanted her to stay. ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ he said.
She asked him again later that afternoon. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘You should go home. I’ll look at flights.’
‘Are you sure, Jamie?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. I’ll look at flights,’ he said again, and he already had his laptop open.
She stood at the window, unhappily eyeing the street. The view of semi-detached Notting Hill villas and leafless little trees was very familiar to her now. She had been there for more than a month, living in her son’s flat while he was in hospital. In January he had been told he had prostate cancer – hence the weeks of radiotherapy in St Mary’s. The doctor had said they would now wait a month and then do some scans to see if the treatment had been successful.
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