All That Man Is

Author(s): David Szalay

Fiction | Novel

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 MAN BOOKER PRIZE. Nine men. Each of them at a different stage of life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving - in the suburbs of Prague, beside a Belgian motorway, in a cheap Cypriot hotel - to understand just what it means to be alive, here and now. Tracing an arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, All That Man Is brings these separate lives together to show us men as they are - ludicrous and inarticulate, shocking and despicable; vital, pitiable, hilarious, and full of heartfelt longing. And as the years chase them down, the stakes become bewilderingly high in this piercing portrayal of 21st-century manhood.


Product Information

Shortlisted for Gordon Burn Prize 2016. Long-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2016.

"Szalay's writing is exact and true and always subtly intelligent; this book is bracing and thrilling and chilling." -- Tessa Hadley "This feels like a great novel driven by its overarching theme: what is my life, here and now, all about? ... Rarely has it been so brilliantly and chillingly spelled out." -- John Harding Daily Mail "There is everything to relish about this intelligent, moving, thoroughly European search for the meaning of life ... It's hard to imagine reading a better book this year." -- Melissa Katsoulis Times "This is no work of cold philosophy... Szalay's forensic untangling of their psyches, and his talent for painting delicious destinations...make you want to journey with them to the bitter end... There is everything to relish about this intelligent, moving, thoroughly European search for the meaning of life... It's hard to imagine reading a better book this year." -- Melissa Katsoulis The Times "Szalay exposes the vulnerability that belies young men's sexual bravado... Szalay takes us inside distinctive worlds." -- Max Liu Independent

David Szalay was born in Canada in 1974. His first novel, London and the South-East, won the Betty Trask Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. His second and third novels, The Innocent (2009) and Spring (2011), were published by Jonathan Cape. In 2013 he was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. He currently lives in Budapest.

General Fields

  • : 9780224099776
  • : Vintage Publishing
  • : Jonathan Cape Ltd
  • : July 2015
  • : 19.80 cmmm X 13.50 cmmm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : February 2016
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : David Szalay
  • : Paperback
  • : 916
  • : en
  • : 813
  • : 240