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Turbulence

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

**WINNER OF THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE 2019**

Discover the brilliant new short story collection from the Man Booker-shortlisted author of All That Man Is

Twelve people on the move around planet Earth, twelve individual lives, each in turmoil, and each in some way touching the next.

In this nuanced and deeply moving sequence, David Szalay's diverse protagonists circumnavigate the world in twelve plane journeys, from London to Madrid, from Dakar to Sao Paulo, to Toronto, to Delhi, to Doha, en route to see lovers and parents, children and siblings, or nobody at all.

Along the way, Szalay deftly depicts the ripple effect that, knowingly or otherwise, a person's actions have on those around them, and invites us to consider our own place in the vast and delicately balanced network of human relationships that is the world we live in today.

© David Szalay 2018 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Anthologies & Short Stories Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Short Stories Tear-jerking

Critic reviews

More tales of mortality from a master of the genre... [Turbulence] is a chilling achievement. (David Sexton)
A portrait of our species at a time of crisis... Szalay is our greatest chronicler of these rootless, tradeworn places, and the desperate, itinerant lives of those who inhabit them. (Alex Preston)
Ingenious… [David Szalay] knows about people… Stark and spare, Turbulence is an impressive novel. (Brian Martin)
Reading David Szalay is like receiving a series of electric shocks: his preference for short, sharp sketches, rather than a single, linear plot, means that his books deny the reader the comforts of conventional, more languid storytelling… Szalay’s stories may be over in just a matter of minutes, but they are violently, appallingly immersive. (Claire Allfree)
As Szalay consistently uproots his reader, proliferating characters and locations, [Turbulence] could be seen as an experiment in the limits of sympathy… a practical test for the way we feel (or fail to feel) for others. Such calculated neutrality is the perfect foil to some heart-stoppingly beautiful prose… Things in this elegant, frightening, politically charged book, fall apart. They also lift off. (Sophie Ratcliffe)
Szalay’s gift for inhabiting entirely different lives is as remarkable and spooky as ever. (Andrew Billen)
[David Szalay's] mastery of form is evident: with deft touches he builds a tangible world. (Hannah Shaddock)
I was intrigued by the premise and the first story didn't disappoint, capturing that altered state which being cooped up in [an aeroplane] seems to invoke. (Kate Chisholm)
Beautifully and delicately told. Each perfectly-formed story is part of a bigger narrative, as Szalay explores the way our actions influence those around us, and highlights the fact that while our technologically connected planet seems to be growing smaller, the people living upon it have grown more isolated from one another. (Christian Lisseman)
Especially striking, in Mr Szalay’s recent work [Turbulence], is how easily he inhabits diverse perspectives… A willingness to leave the dots unjoined is one of the virtues that make Mr Szalay's fiction so rewarding.
All stars
Most relevant
Captivating from the start, this short story cleverly intertwines the lives of 12 passengers travelling the globe each in turmoil. It’s a real page turner and finished it within an an afternoon. Highly recommend it.

Turbulence… beautifully written

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The ending was as if the printer had stopped due to being out of paper. very short,unlinked and episodic encounters. Nothing like the very high standard of the authors recent work. Ine to avoid.

Felt like a first draft

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