Turbulence: A Novel

Written by David Szalay

Narrated by Gabra Zackman

*A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice*

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jul 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781508287087

David Szalay

David Szalay is the author of Turbulence, Spring, The Innocent, London and the South-East, and All That Man Is. He’s been awarded the Gordon Burn Prize and The Paris Review Plimpton Prize for Fiction and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Born in Canada, he grew up in London, and now lives in Budapest.

Reviews for Turbulence

[thepageladies · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Twelve people mostly strangers.

The surprising ripple effect each one has on the life of the next as they cross paths while in transit around the world.

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.

Thank you Goodreads and Scribner Books for a chance to read this book!

Each chapter is about a different character. But each chapter flows into one another to show the connection we have as people and how a single event can affect not just the people closest to the time and place of the event but it can affect someone on the other side of the world. The ripple effect. So, its 12 chapters of short stories but in a way, you don’t really feel like you a reading short story. It was a beautiful book. Happy reading everyone!!

[icolford · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In his very short novel, Turbulence, David Szalay sets out to portray human drama on a global scale. With a structure that resembles a collection of short fiction more so than a conventional novel, Turbulence chronicles twelve pivotal moments from twelve disparate and briefly overlapping lives. Szalay’s characters are drawn from a range of professions and nationalities, and their problems derive from a variety of sources. Travel is the prominent motif linking the 12 sections or chapters, with each section named for the airport codes that figure in the story. The novel opens with “LGW-MAD,” the tale of a woman who has been in London visiting her son, who is ill with cancer. She’s flying back to her home in Spain and had been talking with the man seated next to her when the plane passes through a patch of turbulence. The rocking of the plane, combined with her alarm over her son’s health, gives a solemn and symbolic turn to her thoughts: “What she hated about even mild turbulence was the way it ended the illusion of security, the way it made it impossible to pretend she was somewhere safe.” Subsequently she falls ill, and the chapter ends with her, now in Madrid, being transported to hospital. The next chapter, “MAD-DSS,” picks up the story of the woman’s seating companion, whose name is Cheikh. Cheikh has flown home to Dakar, Senegal, where tragic family news awaits. This is followed by “DSS-GRU,” the story of Werner, a German flying from Dakar to Sao Paulo, whose airport taxi was delayed by a traffic accident (the same tragic event affecting Cheikh’s family), and who is distracted by thoughts of his sister Liesl, who drowned when they were children, and a woman named Sabine, with whom he’s currently involved in a relationship. The novel continues in this fashion, with new characters introduced in each section, whose lives glance briefly off one another, before arriving full circle in the final section, where we return to London and learn more about the son from the first chapter who is battling cancer. Szalay’s novel is a triumph of narrative economy. Each chapter expresses the essence of a life, captured—in the manner of a snapshot—at a single crucial moment. Thus, each miniature seems to carry the seed of a much longer work. The writing throughout is spare, unpretentious and measured. In the end, Turbulence comes across as a minor effort—an experiment in brevity perhaps—not quite a collection of short stories but something less than a novel—that leaves the reader betwixt and between. But it remains, in a quiet, unassuming way, remarkable.

[ocgreg34 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

While on a flight from London to Madrid, a strong bit of turbulence causes an elderly woman to say a few quick words to the man sitting next to her, whom she was at first wary of. This small conversation begins a chain of human connections that travel around the globe, briefly touching on the small stories that normally go unnoticed."Turbulence" provides a good starting point for each of the connections, but I felt like just as the story started to reel me in, the flight moved to another city and another story. I never found myself truly captured by the book because I don't feel that I was given enough time with each group to connect with the characters. It came across as incomplete, needing a few more details to make each of the flights that much more clear instead of leaving as many unanswered questions as I found after finishing the book.

[carriewuj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A clever slender book that follows a handful of flights around the world (based on their three-letter airport abbreviation, which I had fun guessing). Each chapter picks up on one traveler, their interaction with another, and then what happens after they land. Such are we reminded of how we are all connected and also how everyone has something in his or her life that we would never guess at based on our surface airplane interactions. The range of countries and distances was pretty cool and also pretty believable (and eye-opening in this Covid-19 moment) and the narration swung smoothly from character to character like a monkey on a jungle vine. My only wish was to know a little bit more about many of the featured folks, but we are only granted a short snippet. Embedded in the book is a quote by JFK that gets to the essence of it: "For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit the this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." (p. 138) Amen to that!

[froxgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This slim novel jets across the world with a diverse collection of travelers, who eventually form a circle of mostly tragedy and sadness. Each character's story is but a few pages, and though the stories within are affecting, they didn't linger in my mind. I had more fun trying to guess the destinations by the airport abbreviations in each chapter heading.

[bookappeal · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Each of the chapters in the book, named with the abbreviations of airports spanning the globe, focuses on a different character traveling between two airports. Every chapter is very, very short and the main character will not appear again, though a minor character will become the main character in the next story. Given these constraints. Szalay is very good at establishing characters with just a few words of description and/or dialogue. Most of the vignettes have no resolution and maybe that's the point. When traveling, we encounter people we will never see again and Szalay's characters aren't traveling for pleasure. They are forced to travel by serious, sometimes devastating circumstances, and Szalay gives the reader just a glimpse of how well the character will cope. The first character, afraid of flying, sums up the theme nicely. "What she hated about even mild turbulence was the way it ended the illusion of security..." Every character in Turbulence encounters a disruption in the security of everyday life and the stories serve as a reminder that we never really know with what challenges the people we meet on the plane, on the job, or in line at the store, are facing. If you need a resolved ending to enjoy a story, you will not enjoy Turbulence. If you like to be drawn in by an author's skillful writing, no matter what the outcome, this book holds many delights for you, even if many of the stories have a somber tone.

[niaomiya · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

“Turbulence” is a short novel by David Szalay. Each chapter focuses on one character, with each subsequent chapter featuring a character linked to the one in the chapter before. It’s an interesting premise, as the reader is privy to the inner thoughts of multiple characters.While the premise is interesting, each character’s story is only mildly so. I was hoping for more of a connection between the characters of each set of linked chapters, but at most each character mentions the previous one only in passing. In most instances, the character does not mention his/her interaction with the previous chapter’s character at all, and that made me wonder what was the point.Regardless, “Turbulence” is a fast, harmless read that is fairly enjoyable but, unfortunately, not memorable.

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Turbulence, David Szalay, author; Gabra Zackman, narratorThis tiny novel packs a big punch. It begins with the story of a woman who is visiting her son who has been suffering with, and is being treated for, Prostate Cancer. His prognosis is unknown, but he is not optimistic. As the story reveals itself, using a brief anecdote in each of the lives of the 12 different characters, its purpose becomes known. Although they all, at first, seem to be from disparate and disconnected lives, connected by happenstance, in the end, the reader will see them knitted together, for the story comes full circle and returns to the place it began. The message in each character’s life is subtle and seems to make the point, not only that every life has uncertainty in it, but also that each life is fragile. However, it also intimates that life does go on, albeit in a different way for each of the characters. The main point is, that there is, indeed, turbulence in each life, and each of them must overcome their own crisis of character independently.There were two negatives in the narrative for me. One was what appeared to be a contrived insertion of a current day phrase used by Progressives, "toxic masculinity". It was unexpectedly uttered from the mouth of a character whom I would not have thought had ever heard of the phrase, considering her life and background. The other was the ending, which left me hanging. In conclusion, however, after thinking about it, I realized that although no character’s part in the story was fully completed, the reader would probably be left with the feeling that their lives would continue to go on after the final page was turned. After all, isn’t that what we all hope for not matter what we face in life?

[carmenere_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After discovering author, David Szalay a couple of years ago, I was very excited to read his latest book, Turbulence.Twelve chapters are cleverly titled with departure and arrival airport codes. The first chapter lays the ground work of relating a story as to why the character has traveled to their destination. Each proceeding chapter builds on the story preceding it. Usually, a character has traveled by plane to get to a destination for a specific reason but once at their destination they are faced with tragedy, deception, infidelity and sadness making the stories a bit depressing. We see through the well written stories that, on every continent, humans share the same struggle, We are not so different after all.I was hoping the story would bring the characters full circle but instead we return to the airport where the book began which, in a sense, infers there will be more stories with each go round the globe.Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for allowing me to read this e-ARC.

[beckyhaase · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

TURBULENCE by David SzalayThis very short book is a collection of very loosely connected vignettes. Each tells of an incident in the life of the “main” character, a person who has interacted in some way with the main character of the preceding story. Although each vignette poses a problem or life changing incident,, there are no conclusions and there is no background information. While each story is compelling in the moment, each is also dissatisfying in the lack of resolution. The writing is clear, the characters are distinct, the stories disparate. Ultimately, the novel is unsatisfying. It would serve a literature class well, but as a read for enjoyment – choose something else.3 of 5 stars

[eyejaybee · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

One of my favourite books in 2016 was All That Man Is by David Szalay (which, I understand is pronounced ‘Shollay’). This was a collection of thematically linked stories focusing on a series of men, all of whom found themselves alone and a long way from their respective homes, and their musings on their situation. I recognise that that synopsis might serve to make it sound pretty dire - it was actually marvellous, written with a hypnotic charm. All That Man Is was a great critical and commercial success, and made it on to the Booker Prize Shortlist.In this latest book, Szalay has taken the format of thematically linked stories to a higher level. There are twelve stories, all identified by a combination of the three letter codes for international airports, each focusing on a peripheral character from the previous tale. This is a clever idea, but I suspect that in setting such a rigid format, Szalay imposed too great a burden on himself. While some individual stories show a moving insight into the challenges of some relationships, the format denies Szalay the space adequately to explore them.In the end, this book represented a triumph of form over substance, and was a great disappointment.

[kgramer-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good but really short. I enjoyed the connections between the stories but was left wanting to know a lot more about the various characters. Job well done on making me care about these people in such a short time.