All That Man Is by David Szalay

Or: all that man isn't. Male readers beware – Szalay is in no mood to gloss over the shortcomings of his gender as he exposes with clear-sighted precision the multiple and (largely) disastrous failings of his characters. He positions the reader uncomfortably in the midst of the miserable events their various unthinking actions have led them to, over the course of nine trim, untitled stories. 

The opening sections are almost too unflinching. Two disaffected students bum around eastern Europe; one of them sleeps with their Czech landlady out of jaded curiosity. In Cyprus, a young French deadbeat holidays alone until he forms a grim sexual liaison with an English mother and daughter. The book improves hugely as Szalay's protagonists become older, and narratives thicken as his scope broadens. The tale of Kristian, a Danish tabloid hack who pursues an adulterous politician despite his own affairs, reads like a compact thriller and is better for it.

Szalay is too sharp by far to overstate the inevitable impact of his fellow man's actions but it is writ large beside every mid-life crisis-induced property deal, drink, boredom and cash-fuelled sexual encounter: amidst the debris there's always a woman left wondering how on earth these idiots get to be in charge. Szalay's first short story collection has little in the way of answers: no failing when he exposes the problem in such style and with such rigour.