Dua Lipa‘s October pick for her Service95 book club is ‘Flesh‘ by David Szalay. The novel follows teenaged István who lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he’s a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and soon becomes isolated. His neighbour, an older married woman, who he begrudgingly helps with errands, is his only companion. But as these periodical encounters shift into a clandestine relationship, István’s live starts to spiral out of control, ending in a violence accident that leaves a man dead.
What follows is a rocky trajectory that sees István emigrate from Hungary to London, where he moves from job to job before finding steady work as a driver for London’s billionaire class. At each juncture in his life, István is affected by the goodwill or self-interest of strangers while remaining a calm and detached observer in his own life. Through his own eyes, we experience his immigrant “success story.”
See what Dua says below:
Follow us on X/Twitter to stay updated.
