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I love this book! We follow István from his early life to his mid life always being kept at arms length from him emotionally. There is a sense from the writing style that István has low affect. As we read on we learn much more about him in fact and grow to really empathize and care about him (at least I did). There are certain moments that are kept from us as the reader ie what other characters said in conversation, what gifts were given. I appreciate the author David Szalay not holding our hand as the reader or feeling the need to spell everything out. The book is relatively plot driven because of the lack of emotions and it gets pretty wild and self referential. István lives a very unique life and is a character who floats through life by saying yes to almost everything that is presented to him. The pacing and energy of the book reminded me a lot of Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting. I couldn’t put it down because I always had the feeling I needed to know what happened next. Flesh comes out on 4/1/25 and I recommend it very enthusiastically!