Turbulence: A Novel

By David Szalay

*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: Scribner
• Release date: Jul 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781982122751

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.

Book preview

1

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LGW–MAD

On the way home from the hospital, she asked him if he wanted her to stay. No, I’ll be fine, he said.

She asked him again later that afternoon. "I’ll be fine, he said. You should go home. I’ll look at flights."

Are you sure, Jamie?

Yes, I’m sure. I’ll look at flights, he said again, and he already had his laptop open.

She stood at the window, unhappily eyeing the street. The view of semidetached Notting Hill villas and leafless little trees was very familiar to her now. She had been there for more than a month, living in her son’s flat while he was in the hospital. In January he had been told he had prostate cancer—hence the weeks of radiotherapy in St. Mary’s. The doctor had said they would now wait a month and then do some scans to see if the treatment had been successful.

There’s one tomorrow afternoon, at five-ish, he told her. Iberia. From Gatwick to Barajas. Is that okay?

She had been privately wondering whether to make the journey by train and ferry. She told herself not to be silly. She knew it was silly, her fear of flying. The statistics spoke for themselves. Yes, she said. That’s okay.

She turned to face the living room again. Jamie was on the sofa, twisted sideways over the laptop, tapping at it. He had lived in this flat for decades, since his early twenties, all his adult life. There was something neurotic, she thought, about his unwillingness to move. He was in his fifties now, which was strange. She still thought of him as someone young.

Okay, he said, shutting the laptop, that’s sorted, and she thought how easy it was, these days, to do that—to acquire a plane ticket, to travel around.

---

He insisted on accompanying her to the airport. They took the Gatwick Express, didn’t speak much, and parted when she went through security. She was tearful, which wasn’t like her. A minute later, in the snaking security queue, she turned, hoping to find him still there. He wasn’t there, and she had the feeling, as if seeing the future, that he was going to die of his illness, that he would be dead within a year. She was still trembling with the force of the sensation as she struggled with the large plastic tub and took off her shoes.

Once she was through security, she went straight into one of the fake pubs in the departure lounge for a Bloody Mary.

She had a second Bloody Mary and then, when her flight was announced, walked to the gate. It turned out to be a significant distance. When she arrived there were a large number of people already queuing there—more, she thought, than the plane would be able to hold. She wondered if they would need volunteers to stay behind. They didn’t. She was in a window seat. She looked out at the low sunlight on the gray tarmac. The plane started to move.

Then it stopped.

It seemed to be in some sort of queue itself—in regular sequence, the rumble of jets arrived faintly from somewhere she couldn’t see.

The tedium of all this had almost succeeded in sedating her when the pilot’s voice, momentarily present in the cabin, muttered, Prepare for takeoff.

She felt the fear then, even through the vodka, surging up like the sound of the engines in a series of well-defined stages—first one kind of loudness, then another, as she was pressed into her seat and the safe world went past in the window. She never quite believed, at this point in the process, that the plane would take off. She always found herself thinking: Surely it should have happened by now, something must have gone wrong—and so it always took her by surprise, it was always somehow a profoundly surprising moment when the plane’s nose lifted, when the plane pulled itself free of the earth—or the feeling was actually more like the earth was falling away.

Sussex was already quite far down, a bluish patchwork of fields in the dusk.

There was, from somewhere, a quiet ping.

She did not know whether it soothed her or not, that ping. She wondered what it meant. Though it seemed to say that everything was happening normally, it probably meant nothing.

She looked around, as if surprised that she was still alive, and for the first time she noticed the man in the seat next to her.

He was sitting very still with his hands knitted loosely in his lap, staring straight ahead. Perhaps he too was trying to master his fear.

She was going to have to ask him to move at some point.

---

As soon as the fasten–seat belts sign went off, she turned to him and said, Excuse me. She pitched her voice nice and loud—it was surprising how loudly you had to speak to be heard over the noise.

Sure enough, the man looked at her in momentary incomprehension, as if he had no idea what she wanted. Excuse me, she said again.

It was awkward, the way he had to move past the empty aisle seat to let her through. And she wondered, making the same move herself, why he didn’t simply take the aisle seat, since there was no one there—they would both have more space that way.

When he eventually sat down in the middle seat again, she found herself irritated by his obtuseness. She even wondered whether to suggest to him that he move, and a form of words came to her: It might be more comfortable for both of us if you sat there? It was the sort of thing she normally would have said, with an encouraging smile. In this case, however, she worried that the man might infer some sort of prejudice in the suggestion—some sort of racial prejudice—and that was enough on its own to hold her back. She didn’t think she was racist but she found it difficult to be sure, which made her self-conscious in situations like this. She wondered whether to speak to the man. He didn’t seem to be English. The handful of words he had said to her as they shuffled around each other in the aisle had had what sounded like a French accent.

And anyway, he seemed preoccupied himself, absorbed in his own thoughts, whatever they might be.

With small tinkling noises, like tiny scratches on the underlying roar, a trolley was approaching in the aisle.

---

She stirred airline Bloody Mary with a little plastic baton. The engines purred in slow rhythmic waves. She felt the vodka work on her. The tightly packed fabric of the world seemed to loosen. Her mind had more primacy over it—her thoughts started to seem like things that were actually happening. Her son’s death, for instance, presented itself in a series of images that felt so true they made her silently tearful. She turned to the window and found only her own face in the dark plastic now, deeply shadowed like a landscape at sundown. She imagined herself, after his death, emptying his flat—taking everything down from the shelves, all the stuff that he had held on

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!!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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?