While only a small portion of this audiobook takes place on an airplane, each chapter is named for a “departing” or “arriving” airport code. This device—and even the choice of a single narrator for each essentially stand-alone story—reinforces the sense of a world simultaneously linked yet impersonally segmented. The novel is structured around the perspectives of a series of characters, each one of whom somehow touches upon the life of a previous character. Narrator Gabra Zackman performs like a seamless one-woman relay team. She hands off each transition—usually in both nationality and gender—to herself so cleanly that listeners will simultaneously experience both the continuity AND the shifting cadence of the story as it passes from one set of lives to another. K.W. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Turbulence: A Novel
Narrated by Gabra Zackman
David SzalayUnabridged — 2 hours, 29 minutes
Turbulence: A Novel
Narrated by Gabra Zackman
David SzalayUnabridged — 2 hours, 29 minutes
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Overview
A “masterful” (The Washington Post), “cathartic” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), novel about twelve people, mostly strangers, and the surprising ripple effect each one has on the life of the next as they cross paths while in transit around the world-from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of All That Man Is.
In this “compelling” (The Christian Science Monitor), “crisp and clever” (Vanity Fair) novel, Szalay's diverse protagonists circumnavigate the planet in twelve flights, from London to Madrid, from Dakar to Sao Paulo, to Toronto, to Delhi, to Doha, en route to see lovers or estranged siblings, aging parents, baby grandchildren, or nobody at all. Along the way, they experience the full range of human emotions from loneliness to love and, knowingly or otherwise, change each other in one brief, electrifying interaction after the next.
Written with magic and economy, “Szalay explores the miraculous ability of our shared humanity to lift us from loneliness” (Esquire) and delivers a dazzling portrait of the interconnectedness of the modern world.
Editorial Reviews
"A writer with remarkable range."
"Szalay has given us some brilliantly rendered slices of life to enjoy... there’s barely a story here which isn’t in
some way engaging and absorbing, the author’s compassion and involvement with his characters shining
through even in their times of deepest isolation."
Praise for David Szalay and All That Man Is
“Brilliant... remarkable for its grace and economy.
Crisp and clever. . . . Writing with a restraint that comes close to minimalism, Szalay boils down each moment to its most vital and crystalline essence.
"An exceedingly gifted writer who can move in any direction he wishes... Mr. Szalay’s stream of perception never falters in its sensitivity and probity. This book is a demonstration of uncommon power... It is beautiful."
"Illuminating and enthralling."
It is at once uplifting and humbling, the bittersweet essence of life itself.
"Elegant... Impressive... Page by page, Szalay’s mixture of directness and withholding looks increasingly masterly."
"Presents us with a series of lives that feel at once profoundly particular and yet also emblematic, a portrait of our species at a time of crisis... What Turbulence shares with its predecessor is Szalay’s characteristically effortless prose, his ability to distill lives into vignettes, the sense of an author whose curiosity about his fellow humans is boundless. The 21st century, Turbulence suggests, is taking place several miles above the earth, or in overlit and anonymous airports. Szalay is our greatest chronicler of these rootless, tradeworn places, and the desperate, itinerant lives of those who inhabit them."
In this patchwork of deeply felt vignettes, Szalay turns a loving eye on 12 disparate strangers, each of them drawn together while in transit around the world. As their lives intersect in far-flung cities ranging from London to Dakar, Szalay explores the miraculous ability of our shared humanity to lift us from loneliness.
What is perhaps the most clever and profound about this book is how the characters in each chapter are linked to the one that precedes it, coming full circle at the end.
Praise for Turbulence
“Masterful. . . . Its intensity is surprising. . . . Much of the fun of Turbulence is discovering how Szalay will upend the reader’s perspective of a character from one chapter to the next... Clever... Turbulence suggests that such events might shape us, but they don’t define us. Take a good look, Szalay is saying, and do something about it."
"What ties these stories together, 12 of them in total, is that they all begin or end at an airport. Through this concept, Turbulence shows the ways in which these major thoroughfares act as spaces where any and all worlds may converge, often in profound ways. Through characters who are diverse in national identity, religion, socio-economic status, background and circumstance, Szalay is able to evoke a range of emotions perhaps unavailable to a more traditionally organized novel. The contrasting perspectives of Szalay's characters are what make this novel conceptually impressive, but it is the individual characters who animate the novel from page to page. Because the time with each character is so brief, readers are transported directly into the midst of some of their greatest crises, allowing access to an intimate connection it might otherwise take several hundred pages to build. Written in clear and penetrating prose, Szalay's Turbulence is a refreshing and empathetic take on the cosmopolitan novel."
"Szalay’s spare writing packs an emotional punch, his impressionistic sketches capturing in just a few pages the pivotal moments of entire lives. Turbulence is an inventive examination of the ties that bind us together and the ease with which they can be broken.
Unnerving and compelling. . . . Remarkable.
"A satisfying, globetrotting narrative."
Especially striking is how easily [Szalay] inhabits diverse perspectives.... He pulls off this imaginative feat because his focus is on age-old themes of mortality and desire... A willingness to leave dots unjoined is one of the virtues that make Mr. Szalay’s fiction so rewarding.
"[Szalay is] a master... Turbulence, told so limpidly that it may seem quite slight, is a chilling achievement."
"Szalay is able to describe even the most mundane situations with limpid elegance... Szalay is a first-class noticer, a master."
"Szalay has an admirable fearlessness for swiftly entering invented fictional worlds. . . . Full of intelligently managed detail . . . Bracingly unsentimental. . . . Intensely readable. . . . After several hundred pages of great brilliance and brutal simplicity, here at last is a deeper picture of all that man is, or all that he might be."
Szalay innovates in this ingenious new book... He knows about people... Stark and spare, Turbulence is an impressive novel.
"A Canterbury Talesfor our modern era."
Profound... Unexpectedly moving... Szalay’s gift for inhabiting entirely different lives is as remarkable and spooky as ever.
"With Szalay’s minimalist, red-eyed observations of the textures of 21st-century Europe, the book reads like what Hemingway might have called In Our Time had he written it 90 years later.
Turbulence is somehow light yet also quite moving, offering readers deep, empathetic connections with men and women whose lives differ dramatically from those of one another. Szalay’s range is impressive, given the tendency of many novelists to circumscribe their stories within a particular culture or social circle, usually the one most familiar to them. By contrast, Szalay draws his characters from a variety of nationalities, economic circumstances, religious identities, and stages of life, yet all are distinct individuals who are entirely believable and captivating. . . . Szalay is particularly adept at immersing us in the consciousness of men who, whether doctors or gardeners, rage against their powerlessness in the wider world and in the smaller world of their personal lives. That he does so with such economy is what makes Turbulence masterful... Compelling... I wanted more time with every person in Szalay’s book.
Szalay does so much and so well that we come to view his snapshots of lives as brilliant, captivating dramas.
"Indelible... Wholly unique... Szalay proves himself a deft storyteller of shrewd psychological intrigue."
"Deftly wrought... reads like a turbo-charged daisy-chain... appallingly immersive."
Impressive... Swift, surprising... Skillfully done.
"Deftly wrought... reads like a turbo-charged daisy-chain... appallingly immersive."
"Szalay’s spare writing packs an emotional punch, his impressionistic sketches capturing in just a few pages the pivotal moments of entire lives. Turbulence is an inventive examination of the ties that bind us together and the ease with which they can be broken.
Profound... Unexpectedly moving... Szalay’s gift for inhabiting entirely different lives is as remarkable and spooky as ever.
Unnerving and compelling. . . . Remarkable.
While only a small portion of this audiobook takes place on an airplane, each chapter is named for a “departing” or “arriving” airport code. This device—and even the choice of a single narrator for each essentially stand-alone story—reinforces the sense of a world simultaneously linked yet impersonally segmented. The novel is structured around the perspectives of a series of characters, each one of whom somehow touches upon the life of a previous character. Narrator Gabra Zackman performs like a seamless one-woman relay team. She hands off each transition—usually in both nationality and gender—to herself so cleanly that listeners will simultaneously experience both the continuity AND the shifting cadence of the story as it passes from one set of lives to another. K.W. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171149383 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 07/16/2019 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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