Canadian-born David Szalay's first novel, London and the South-East, won multiple awards when it was published in Britain in 2008. Two years later, with another novel under his belt, he was named as one of the 20 best British novelists under 40 by the Telegraph. But it's his third novel, Spring, that finally marks his availability to American readers. Technically, Spring is a love story, in that it follows two characters, James and Katherine, as they embark on an affair. But it quickly becomes apparent to the reader that Szalay is anything but traditional in his approach to romance. Both James and Katherine seem unfulfilled--in life, at work and with love--yet their burgeoning relationship doesn't immediately satisfy them (in both the physical and the mental sense), nor does it satisfy the reader. The affair is wrought with tension, complicated by layers of emotion and full of fits and starts, which makes it frustrating at times for readers, but then again also completely recognizable and realistic.
Szalay has a modern, understated voice and a gift for writing bursts of funny, yet still sharp, dialogue. The awards and praise heaped on his previous works in England mark him as a young novelist to watch, and there is little doubt that Spring will garner him an appreciative audience of readers in the States, too. --Roni K. Devlin, owner of Literary Life Bookstore & More