The "joke" in this dark, sophisticated literary comedy is that Mary Swann, a murdered poet from small-town Canada, is the title character and yet a minor figure throughout. In fact, nearly every remnant of her minuscule body of work—and conventional life—seems to be vanishing. That makes the novel something of a mystery, one in which the crime is not an unsolved murder (it's established that her husband, Angus, shot and dismembered her) but the ease with which genius can slip into obscurity. Swann comments on the fragile legacy people leave behind, especially women without power or influence, encourages us to marvel at life's contingency, and celebrates ordinariness … continued

Review by Rebecca Foster

A large number of contemporary American works of speculative fiction, if not the majority, could reasonably be classified as dystopian in some sense—imagining a future world in which the era-defining problems of our time like climate change, white supremacy, fascism, and the obscenely wide income gaps of late-stage capitalism have gotten exponentially worse. This is likely not because the authors who write this kind of fiction are pessimists, though surely some are, but because dystopia seemingly lends itself more easily to a compelling plot. Storytelling, we have been told, requires conflict. The protagonist must be up against something—in the dystopian plot, it is usually a fascist government, societal collapse, climate disaster, or some combination of these—and ultimately prevail.

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This year’s Booker Prize goes to David Szalay’s Flesh, a novel that journeys through one man’s turbulent life from an outside perspective. Chair of judges Roddy Doyle remarked, “We had never read anything quite like it. It is, in many ways, a dark book but it is a joy to read.”

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