Listen to David Szalay HERE.

I often talk to women, but this week I reversed the trend and spoke to a man about the experience of being a man. A truly original idea! The man is David Szalay. His book, All That Man Is, shortlisted for the Mann Booker Prize, is a collection of nine stories about men at different points in their lives, each struggling with what creates a meaningful life. The pros are vivid, arresting, and unsentimental, especially when covering terrain such as male desire, male failure, and the dreamlike (sometimes mundane) nature of being a human. For a cerebral analysis of the book, check out James Wood’s review in the New Yorker, Nine Tales of Crisis in “All That A Man Is” – David Szalay’s novel is bracingly unsentimental about male desire and male failure. (The cover illustration is by BJØRN LIE for the New Yorker and it accompanies this article.)

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with David and I hope you do too.

xoox Angie

I had to include this dashing photo! Buy All that Man Is here.

Szalay (pronounced SOL-loy) was born in Montreal in 1974 to a Hungarian father and a Canadian mother. He grew up in London, was educated at Oxford, and currently lives in Budapest. He is the author of three previous novels, London and the South-East, The Innocent, and Spring. In 2013, Granta named him one of its best young British novelists.