David Szalay (Julia Papp)

“There’s something terrible about the way normality asserts itself.” The statement, placed in the close third-person consciousness of István, the protagonist of Montreal-born David Szalay’s latest novel, could serve as a thesis for the entire project. Thematically, Flesh extends its author’s examination of contemporary masculinity, a subject addressed in almost fanatical detail in his sublime 2016 volume All That Man Is, a book that exists in the liminal space between a novel and a collection of stories. (The author himself is cagily insistent that while the book may not constitute a novel, it is most definitely not a work of short fiction.)

That work, set in various locations and time periods, addressed nine different men from diverse backgrounds and situations, cumulatively creating a kind of mosaic representing the idea espoused in its title. Flesh is, if not more straightforward, at least more linear and easily recognizable as a novel. It begins when its protagonist is 15 and living with his mother in their native Hungary. After being sexually rejected by a girl his own age, the adolescent embarks on an affair with a neighbour he considers unspeakably old (she is 42) and he becomes convinced he is in love with her. Discord ensues, someone dies, and István finds himself sentenced to a stint in juvie.

On his release, his criminal record precludes him from getting a job, so he enlists in the army. The bulk of the narrative follows the man as he returns to civilian life, takes up a series of posts as a bouncer and bodyguard, eventually marrying one of his charges, and adopting a monied life as a property developer.

A bare-bones plot description does not do justice to Szalay’s literary achievement in the novel, which, as ever, is predicated upon his stylistic legerdemain. Whereas All That Man Is was innovative at a macro level, in Flesh Szalay digs in to find a linguistic style that operates on the level of the sentence and, equally important, in the spaces between sentences. Mirroring its laconic protagonist, the novel’s style is almost Beckettian in its austerity: key events in the narrative are merely hinted at, occur as short declarative sentences that appear in an instant and then are passed over, or exist off the page, in lacunae and silences that require the reader to piece together their importance. In one key example, a car accident is followed by a quartet of sentences devoid of full stops (to indicate the provisional status of the protagonist’s thinking in the face of tragedy) and a blank page (emblematic of the emptiness that has opened in the character’s life and psyche).

The dialogue is similarly terse and contained, with István’s reticence to reveal himself dramatized via clipped responses to questions and repeated one-word acknowledgements like “Yeah” or “Okay.” One typical interaction runs like this: “I don’t want to talk about it.” “Okay. … I was just wondering.” “I don’t want to talk about it.” “Okay.” Szalay uses repetition and rhythm to propel his dialogue and strips the prose to its bones; the result is an ironic heightening of the psychological realism that attends the presentation of István’s consciousness.

Unsurprisingly, in a novel called Flesh, much of the focus is on István’s erotic history, a subject that is dealt with straightforwardly and bluntly. István finds himself embroiled in numerous ill-considered liaisons, most of which end badly. But the sex in the novel is never an end in itself; it is inextricably tied into István’s character and his creator’s philosophical examination of the masculine condition. The result is a narrative that locates itself somewhere between Ernest Hemingway and Milan Kundera.

The sophistication and understatement is admirable, and the novel would be almost unimpeachable, were it not for a scant number of instances in the second half that abandon István’s close third-person perspective to provide scenes from other characters’ points of view. These scenes, a number of them from the perspective of István’s antagonistic stepson, Thomas, are necessary to convey essential information, but there are too few of them to be completely effective; they come off feeling intrusive on a narrative that is otherwise resolutely focused on one central consciousness.

But this is ultimately a minor complaint. The novel has a nicely circular structure; István ends up more or less where he began, living alone with his mother. But he is also, we realize, thoroughly changed by his experiences, in ways that are both edifying and tragic.

Shuttling between Hungary and London, England, Flesh has a highly European feel to it, not just in its setting or its willingness to deal with carnal matters in a clear and unembarrassed manner, but in its engagement with metaphysical ideas and its refusal to pander to its reader. If it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the author’s earlier work, it comes pretty damn close.