- This novel by Booker Prize-shortlisted author David Szalay (pronounced So-LOY) was highly recommended by well-regarded literary critic Peter Craven in The Saturday Paper (April 12). I was persuaded to buy it and am so glad I did. It's magnificent on every level.
- Fundamentally it's a story about Istvan, a frustrated loner from Hungary who, after three years in a young offenders institution, joins the army and is sent to Iraq for five years. He then moves to London to try to get on with his life.
- Szalay tells this simple story in plain, fact-based, logical prose, without posture or any modernist pretence, which is refreshing. The dialogue between the characters is real and basic. Short utterances and short repeat questions characterise it: 'So', he says. 'What now?' 'I don't know. What do you want to do?' she asks. 'Do?' He's lighting a cigarette. 'Yes'. 'What am I here to do?' he asks.
- We're absorbed in Istvan’s life and career - his family relationships, his sex life, his marriage, the work opportunities that come his way, his failures, and his eventual depression. And, importantly, there's immense tragedy, sadness and death. In the end, despite his good looks, his compassion and honesty, and his commitment to his career, it all adds up to nothing.
- This defining incident is central: after two years in London, working as a bouncer at a strip club, he sees an old man in an alley being assaulted by two thieves. He attends to him and calls an ambulance. Later the man calls him and invites him to dinner. He owns a private security agency and offers Istvan a job as a bodyguard to celebrities and wealthy people. He accepts.
- He is then offered a full time job as a security driver for the very rich Karl and Helen Nyman and their teenage son Thomas. She is forty and attracted to Istvan and they start having sex. It’s ‘intense and exciting’. Not so long afterwards Karl dies of cancer and Istvan and Helen marry. Thomas, however, 'hates him' and is angry. ‘I think he just married her for her money’.
- Importantly, Thomas has been left everything by his father. He will inherit it all when he’s 25. A lawyer has oversight. However, as Istvan's career as a property investor develops, he and Helen often extract money from the Trust without Thomas's approval. He eventually finds out and sues them, and it doesn't end well.
- The marriage survives but a when a tragic, heart-breaking accident occurs, Istvan falls into a state of severe depression.
- This is a thoroughly absorbing story from a master of the craft. I can't recommend it highly enough.
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