David Szalay’s Booker Prize-winning novel Flesh portrays working-class masculinity through István’s physical presence, impulsive actions and difficulty articulating his feelings. Its spare narration leaves parts of his life unexplained, inviting readers to infer experience from what he does and what the story omits. But masculinity is one strand of a wider portrait of class, power, intimacy, migration and the body.
Masculinity shown through the body and action
The Booker Prize judges describe István as physical and impulsive, and as a man “barely on speaking terms with his feelings.” Rather than relying on extended self-explanation, Flesh makes his character legible through bodily presence and action. His reserve can be read as a portrayal of masculinity shaped by circumstance and embodied experience, not as proof that he has no inner life.
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Flesh: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) | $13.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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David Szalay Collection-2 Books Set (All That Man Is & Flesh) | $48.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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David Copperfield (Spanish Edition) | $1.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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David Copperfield (Spanish Edition) | $1.99 | Buy on Amazon |
Szalay has described the novel’s starting point as an interest in physical existence: “I wanted to write about life as a physical experience, about what it’s like to be a living body in the world.” That statement offers context for the novel’s attention to the body; it does not prescribe a single meaning for István or the story.
How class shapes István’s changing circumstances
István’s life takes him from adolescence on a Hungarian housing estate through borstal and military service in Iraq to work as personal security for London’s very wealthy. The arc places a working-class background alongside later proximity to privilege. It is a movement across sharply different social settings, not evidence that entering wealthy circles resolves the vulnerabilities or alienation readers may perceive in him.
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The class dimension also complicates any simple account of masculinity. István’s actions and reserve unfold amid changing institutions and relationships, while the novel’s movement across borders brings migration into the picture. His circumstances change; the narrative does not reduce that change to a straightforward story of social advancement.
What the novel’s silences leave readers to infer
Large stretches of István’s life—including incarceration and wartime service—take place off the page. The omissions matter formally: readers encounter a life that is not fully explained through continuous interior narration. Roddy Doyle, chair of the 2025 Booker Prize judges, said the novel “presents us with a certain type of man that invites us to look behind the face.” The invitation is to interpret, not to assume that reticence means emotional emptiness.
In that sense, the gaps work with the novel’s attention to physical experience. Readers can consider how actions, bodily presence and absences suggest experience without treating any one inference as settled fact. The Booker judges praised the “sparest of prose” as part of an “astonishingly moving portrait of a man’s life.”
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why masculinity is not the novel’s only subject
The Booker Prize described Flesh as a meditation on “class, power, intimacy, migration and masculinity.” Those themes overlap: class positions frame István’s encounters with power and intimacy, while his movement between Hungary and London brings migration into his story. Reading the novel through masculinity is productive, but it should not turn the book into a thesis about men alone. A 2025 Guardian interview reported Szalay’s reluctance to have it pigeonholed as a treatise on men.
The Booker Prize’s official page for Flesh and its reading guide provide further context for the novel’s themes. Flesh won the 2025 Booker Prize.
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