Turbulence - by David Szalay (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Flesh, a "masterful" (The Washington Post), "cathartic" (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), novel about twelve people, mostly strangers, and the surprising ripple effect each one has on the life of the next as they cross paths while in transit around the worldIn this "compelling" (The Christian Science Monitor), "crisp and clever" (Vanity Fair) novel, Szalay's diverse protagonists circumnavigate the planet in twelve flights, from London to Madrid, from Dakar to Sao Paulo, to Toronto, to Delhi, to Doha, en route to see lovers or estranged siblings, aging parents, baby grandchildren, or nobody at all. Along the way, they experience the full range of human emotions from loneliness to love and, knowingly or otherwise, change each other in one brief, electrifying interaction after the next. Written with magic and economy, "Szalay explores the miraculous ability of our shared humanity to lift us from loneliness" (Esquire) and delivers a dazzling portrait of the interconnectedness of the modern world.

Review Quotes

Praise for Turbulence "Masterful. . . . Its intensity is surprising. . . . Much of the fun of Turbulence is discovering how Szalay will upend the reader's perspective of a character from one chapter to the next... Clever... Turbulence suggests that such events might shape us, but they don't define us. Take a good look, Szalay is saying, and do something about it."

About the Author

David Szalay is the author of Turbulence, London and the South-East, and All That Man Is. His novels have won and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and he has been awarded the Gordon Burn Prize and The Paris Review Plimpton Prize for Fiction. Born in Canada, he grew up in London, and now lives in Vienna.