Toxic male behaviour of David Szalay’s protagonist reflects real-world concerns about a ‘crisis of masculinity’
In the immediate aftermath of David Szalay’s book Flesh winning the Booker prize, one feature of the novel stood out: how often the protagonist utters the word “OK”.
The 500 times István grunts out the response is part of a sparse prose style through which the British-Hungarian Szalay gives the reader few insights into the inner workings of a man whose fortunes rise and fall.
But however inarticulate István is, the fact a story about a working-class man from eastern Europe won one of the biggest literary prizes in the world has started a debate about masculinity in literature in 2025.
GQ implored readers not to reduce the book to “discourse fodder”. But in a year when the idea of literary masculinity – and its apparent scarcity – has featured so prominently, the ascent of Flesh – a story about a taciturn, lustful and at times violent man – was always going to drive debate.
